


A Scout Always Tries

by JeanieNitro



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic), Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Boy Scouts, Canon Temporary Character Death, Dex deserves nice things, Kid Fic, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Multi, Radio Host Nursey, Scientist Chowder, Scoutmaster Dex, Temporary Character Death, Wil has anxiety, William Poindexter is Good With Kids, and he's the only one who doesn't realize it, and probably ADHD, kind of?, mute children - Freeform, oh my god this fic turned into a monster, well one mute child specifically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-01-11
Packaged: 2021-02-26 02:41:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 27,513
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21996184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JeanieNitro/pseuds/JeanieNitro
Summary: Growing up in a little town called Night Vale, Will and Derek were best of friends . . . until the day they read their fates on the stone tablets under city hall. Now Derek is the “chill”, sarcastic Voice of Night Vale who barely acknowledges Will’s presence, while Will spends his time volunteering as Scoutmaster and pining over what could have been. One day, Chris, a beautiful and perfect scientist from out of town, comes into town and changes both their lives.
Relationships: Chris "Chowder" Chow/Derek "Nursey" Nurse, Chris "Chowder" Chow/Derek "Nursey" Nurse/William "Dex" Poindexter, Chris "Chowder" Chow/William "Dex" Poindexter
Comments: 70
Kudos: 41
Collections: OMGCP AU Bang 2019





	1. Chris the Scientist

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Ternary Logic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1288681) by [fairbreeze](https://archiveofourown.org/users/fairbreeze/pseuds/fairbreeze). 



> I realize that the overlap in fandoms between WTNV and Check Please is probably very small, but this is an AU that seized me one day after I was reminiscing about WTNV and going through all the art for it I’d reblogged back in the day. [This piece of Cecil](https://goodnightmoonvale.tumblr.com/post/103012709179/theloppyone-was-getting-real-sick-of-seeing-the) and videntefernandez’s whole entire Earl tag ([this one](https://goodnightmoonvale.tumblr.com/post/112783157439/earl-harlan-that-cecil-earl-harlan) and [this one](https://goodnightmoonvale.tumblr.com/post/172641874669/videntefernandez-i-made-it-earl-harlan-week) and [this one](https://goodnightmoonvale.tumblr.com/post/172642154784/videntefernandez-after-the-last-post-my-friends), specifically) really sunk hooks into my brain and wouldn’t let me go. Plus, once upon a time I read Ternary Logic, by fairbreeze, and it was so beautiful that it never left me. The first part of this fic (so, everything before the Interlude), is basically a bastard version of that one.
> 
> I’ve tried to make it as accessible as possible to fans of Check Please who don’t know much about Night Vale by including relevant snippets of the show edited somewhat to fit Derek’s voice better, which give a small sense of the weirdness and tone of the show. Just know that Night Vale is a little town somewhere in the American Southwest that’s full of horror, beauty, and weirdness, where time isn’t real and neither are mountains.
> 
> Night Vale fans: I’ve tried to be fairly accurate to show canon (up through about episode 65 or so, since that’s about when I stopped listening), although accuracy does not always extend to strict chronological order of events. I’ve also tried not to just rehash over everything covered on the show, since that’s a lot of ground to cover, so I’ve stuck to a few key moments and some brief, massively-summarized mentions of good chunks of plot.

Will is elbow deep in the engine of his truck, trying to figure out what’s wrong with her _this_ time. He’s already cleaned the spark plugs and checked the battery fluid, but for some reason she still won’t start consistently. He’s got the radio on in the background, the soothing tones of the Voice of Night Vale filling up the space in his garage. It always gives him a little pang to hear Derek’s voice, even all these years later, but he’s mostly used to it now. Which is good, since basically every radio in Night Vale is constantly tuned to the community station — besides which, it’s the only place to get reliable information on what’s happening in town.

Derek is rambling on about something or other. Apparently there’s a new scientist in town. Will isn’t sure why this is noteworthy, since the science district is full of scientists, but there must be something.

> _. . . so guys, there’s a new man in town. He says he’s a scientist, but his hair and his lab coat are_ unreal _, way more perfect and beautiful than any scientist I’ve ever seen. What do you think he’s doing here? What do you think he wants from us? What does he plan to do with all those breakers and humming electrical instruments in that lab he’s renting — the one next to Big Rico’s Pizza? (No one does a slice like Big Rico’s. NO ONE._

Oh. Will recognizes that tone of voice, even if the way Derek is saying it on the radio makes it sound sarcastic — and if that doesn’t twist a knife in his ribs. “Chris,” Will mumbles in irritation, when Derek finally says the scientist’s name.

> _Chris told everyone today that we are definitely the most scientifically interesting community in the US, and he just had to come study what was going on around here. He grinned, and_ WOW _, listeners. Wow. I’m definitely in love. Who wouldn’t be?_

Will is absolutely sure he’s going to hate this new scientist on sight.

* * *

  


The thing about Chris, Chris the Scientist (Will can practically feel the capital letters in the way they roll off Derek’s tongue), is that _everyone_ seems to love him, not just Derek.

“Isn’t he the sweetest boy,” Old Woman Josie had said when she stopped over to borrow some salt. “Such a polite young man. The Erikas don’t like him much, but they didn’t take too kindly to him trying to _measure_ them. I’m sure they’ll come around, though. He is just such a dear.”

“. . . and he’s got a _van_ , full of cool _science stuff_ ,” one of the scouts had gushed. “All kinds of cool things!” Will wasn’t proud of the way he’d eventually snapped at them all to be quiet and get back to practicing their knots, and then given them an impromptu quiz on remedies for scorpion stings, but he couldn’t stand to hear them talking about it for a minute longer.

Now he’s stuck in line at the Ralph’s, listening to Derek gush on the radio about how Chris the Scientist had _called him back_ , had _talked to him about Science_. (Okay, it may not sound like gushing to anyone but Will, but it definitely is gushing, for Derek.) He grits his teeth, smiles politely at the cashier — a scout is kind, after all — and hustles the groceries out to the truck. He uses the little bloodstone circle in the back of the truck to lay down a quick chant on the perishables, hops into the cab, turns the keys, and . . . . nothing. The engine revs hollowly.

He bangs his head on the steering wheel. “Come on baby, not now,” he whispers frantically. “I just want to be _home_ , don’t do this to me.” He revs the engine a couple more times just for good measure, but it’s clearly pointless. He heaves a big sigh, pops the hood, and climbs out of the cab.

He’s deep into his regular “check everything” routine when someone pops out of nowhere right near his left elbow.

“Hi!” the person says, and Will nearly jumps out of his skin.

“Hey,” Will says, turning around, but he doesn’t recognize the person at all.

“Need any help?” the person said, managing to sound concerned and out of breath and completely enthusiastic all at once. “Not that I know anything about cars or anything, but we can drive you back to your house so your milk doesn’t go bad? I’m Chris, by the way,” he says, and holds out his hand.

Will does his best to wipe the grease off his hand and return the shake. “Will,” he says. “The milk should be fine, I did a quick chant with my portable bloodstone circle, so that should keep it for a couple of hours.” Chris’s face does something complicated, like he was horrified but trying valiantly to stuff down his horror, confusion, and questions for the sake of politeness. 

“Well, that’s good,” he says. “Anything else I can do to help?”

“Can I get a jump from your car? Do you have a car?” Will asks, looking around. “She should be fine once I can get her started.”

“Oh! Yeah, we have the research van. Do you have jumper cables?” Chris asks, sounding extremely unsure.

“Yeah, I always have jumper cables. A scout is always prepared.” Will mumbles the last words like an invocation, and it is, in a way. He wouldn’t be worthy of being a Scoutmaster if he stopped living the Scout Law.

A white van pulls up and Chris and a couple of other scientists tumble out. They manage to get the jumper cables hooked up and the truck running in pretty short order. 

“You sure you don’t want us to follow you back, just to make sure you’re good?” Chris asks over the roar of the truck’s engine. 

“No, she’ll be fine until I get home at least,” Will says, patting the truck. “Thank you so much!”

“No worries!” Chris says.

“You need anything I can help you with?” Will asks, feeling obligated to try and offer _something_ , even if he really doesn’t want to spend a second longer around Chris than he has to. 

“I mean, I think we’re good for now,” Chris says. Then he pauses, and gives Will a very blatant once-over. “Unless you want to buy me dinner?” 

Will immediately flushes bright red, he can feel it. His brain shuts down. He tries to stammer out some kind of answer but his mouth isn’t working at all.

“If not, that’s fine!” Chris says, backtracking and looking a little disappointed.

“That’s not a no!” Will manages to croak out, even as the rest of him is screaming at himself. “Just, let me get back to you?”

Chris’s smile — his perfect, perfect smile, dammit Derek — beams brighter than the sun. “Well I’ll see you around then!” he says. “Nice to meet you!”

“You too,” Will mumbles, and swings himself into his truck as fast as he possibly can. The truck’s heavy door slams, blocking him out from whatever catastrophic disaster had just happened there, and he lets out a long slow breath, in and out. After a couple more seconds, he manages to collect himself enough switch the truck into first gear and roll out of the parking lot.

  


* * *

He’s just turning into his driveway when Derek comes back on the radio with community announcements.

> _The Boy Scouts of Night Vale have announced some slight changes to their hierarchy, which will now be the following: Cub Scout, Boy Scout, Eagle Scout, Blood Pact Scout, Weird Scout, Dreadnought Scout, Dark Scout, Fear Scout, and finally, Eternal Scout._

It has the same effect on Will as if a bucket of ice water had been dumped on him. He shivers violently, and his insides shrivel. Every muscle in him tenses, and he can feel something like bile, something like panic, rising in his throat. No. No. It can’t be. Not yet. He knew this would come eventually; it’s written in the tablets under City Hall, after all. But he never thought it would be so soon. He feels like he hasn’t even been Scoutmaster that long. It’s been what, a couple years? Three? And now Derek has just spoken the words that seal Will’s fate. Not that Derek cares. He said it just as casually as he’d announced the bowling league starting up again.

Will turns the car off and shakes and shakes and shakes.


	2. The Library, The Moonlite All Nite Diner

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is probably the goriest chapter and is the reason I went back and forth on whether or not to tag the work with "graphic depictions of violence." None of the humans get hurt. If you need more detail, see end of chapter notes.

> _Now, in the news: after months of protests from ordinary Night Vale people, the City Council has finally announced some improvements to the public library. Here’s what we’re getting:_
> 
> _They’re adding a front entrance, so we won’t have to enter by waking up between two shelves in a dizzy haze, unsure of how we got there, and then wandering around, trapped, until we wake up with a start in our own beds, covered with sweat, with the books we checked out sitting on our nightstand, anymore._
> 
> _Librarian repellant dispensers are being placed throughout the building. Remember, if approached by a librarian, keep absolutely still and don’t run. Try to make yourself bigger than the librarian. How? I have no idea, librarians are huge._
> 
> _Lastly, the children’s section is getting bean bag chairs._

Sometime later (a week? Two weeks? It’s been kind of a blur), Will is driving by the library when he realizes that he recognizes the van parked out in front of the library, and that Chris is leaping enthusiastically up the steps.

“Chris!!” he yells out the window, but it’s too late. Chris vanishes into the building.

Will swears internally and yanks the steering wheel over. The truck rolls up on the curb and Will winces, gives the truck a quick pat and a clipped apology as he throws off his seatbelt, slams the door open, jumps out, and slams it shut again. He’s halfway up the stairs before he remembers that this is _the library_ , and while speed is of the essence, he will definitely need something more than just his pocket knife. He sprints back to the truck, grabs his danger-bag and machete out of the back, and dashes up the library stairs again, uttering a quick prayer to whatever benevolent forces are listening and drawing a quick sigil on his chest.

He steps into the library as quietly as possible, machete in hand. 

Chris is looking around the library at the towering bookshelves, the atrium skylight way up above them letting in some filtered sunlight.

“Oh hey!” Chris says, cheerful voice cutting through the deathly silence.

Will’s eyes widen in panic and he raises his free hand to his lips. “Shhhhh!!!!” he manages to hiss frantically.

“Right, of course, it’s the library,” Chris says more quietly. “What’re _you_ at the library for?”

“We _shouldn’t be here_ ,” Will hisses. “You have to get out of here _right now_.”

Chris looks confused and a little worried at how panicked Will is acting. His brow furrows. “Is the library closed or something? The door was open.”

Will looks longingly at the door behind him, so close and yet so far away. He jerks his head towards the door and rolls his eyes in a “let’s go” motion. “Quick! Before a _librarian_ finds us.”

Chris is looking even more confused now. “Don’t we _want_ a librarian? I’m just here for some research.”

Will shakes his head back and forth in short, rapid movements, almost involuntarily. “We _have_ to go _now_ ,” he tries again in his most insistent whisper. How has this idiot even survived in Night Vale this long? Sure, it’s only been a few weeks, but if he’s doing stuff like marching into the library without even a weapon, he’ll probably stumble into something else. Or worse, run afoul of the secret police.

Chris’s worried and confused expression intensifies, but he takes a few hesitant steps towards Will.

Will nods encouragingly, trying to get Chris to hurry up, hurry up, come on come on come on — 

A shadow skitters across the edge of his vision, and Will whips around with a growing sense of horror. There, blocking the door, is a Librarian in all its horrible, awful glory.

“What is _that_????” Chris gasps.

“That’s a librarian,” Will says grimly. “Don’t move. It’ll chase you if you run.”

“How do we get away from it?”

“There should be some librarian repellent dispensers around here in the lobby, which should slow it down or maybe even get it to leave, if we can get to them. Also you can try making yourself look bigger and more intimidating than it.”

“How???” Chris hisses. “It’s like 10 feet tall!!”

“You could get on my shoulders,” Will says.

Chris looks him up and down. “No, you get on mine,” he says. “You have a machete and you know how to use it probably way better than I do. You’ll need your hands free.”

“Can you lift me?” Will asks, trying not to sound skeptical. If they fall over, it’s going to be way worse for them both.

“You weigh what, 200, 220 pounds?” Chris asks, looking at Will. 

“250,” Will says.

“Yeah, that should be fine,”

Keeping their eyes on the librarian, which is still making ominous hissing sounds and gently waving its tentacles in their general direction, they do a sort of shimmy maneuver where Will gets on Chris’s back and scoots his way upward until he’s sitting firmly on Chris’s shoulders. Chris is surprisingly strong and steady underneath him, almost as solid as sitting on a chair. Will lifts his arms up, raising the machete and trying to look big.

The librarian hisses in warning, seeming uncertain.

“There’s a librarian repellent dispenser about 15 feet to your right, on the reception desk,” Will whispers. “Let’s see if we can get there. Move really slowly and don’t turn your back on it.”

Chris takes a brief glance towards the desk and then nods. He turns his head more firmly towards the librarian and takes a small, shuffling step towards the reception desk. The librarian cocks what must be its head, clearly watching them. Chris takes another step. The librarian doesn’t seem to be coming closer or about to attack, so Chris starts shuffling more and more, inching them slowly but surely towards the librarian repellent. They’re about two thirds of the way there when the librarian finally seems to realize what they’re doing. It rears back to its full height (a good 5 feet taller than the two of them combined) and lets out and ear-piercing shriek. Chris freezes up underneath him.

“Just make a break for it!” Will says to Chris. Chris lurches violently towards the reception desk, nearly unseating Will, just as the librarian undulates forwards, rattling as it comes. Chris takes another heavy step towards the desk and Will falls off completely, landing on his back on the tough carpet hard enough to knock the breath out of him. Fighting through the pain in his lungs, he rolls onto his stomach and swings the machete up just in time to catch a tentacle that had been reaching for Chris’s ankles. The librarian shrieks in pain, rattling in rage. It draws itself together again, poised to strike at Will. Will rolls onto one knee and holds the machete defensively above him so that if it strikes him, it will have to impale itself.. The librarian comes pouring down and Will bows his head and braces himself —

The librarian shrieks again, this time in pain, hisses, and shudders away. Will looks up to see Chris holding a can of librarian repellent that he’s somehow managed to rip out of the dispenser. Chris looks cold and totally focused, and is pointing the librarian repellent right at the thing’s “face”. Chris steps forward slowly, squirting stream after stream of librarian repellent at it. It hisses and squeals and seems to be trying to shrink in on itself.

Will doesn’t like to kill things unnecessarily, but he knows an advantage when he sees it. He ducks up and out of the way of Chris’s spraying, lifts the machete, and brings it down in a big overhand slice right through the center of the thing, pausing at the end of his slice, adjusting his grip, and driving it straight into the center of the wriggling mass. There’s a hissing sound sort of like a balloon deflating, and the librarian goes limp.

They stare at it in shock for a couple of heartbeats.

“Let’s get out of here before more of them find us!” Will says. Chris just nods, eyes wide, and they run for the door.

They tumble outside, panting heavily.

“Holy shit!” Chris says, eventually.

Will just nods, not having caught his breath yet.

“Your library is insane!”

“Are . . . are your libraries different than that?” Will asks, bent over, hands on knees. He watches, absently, as globs of ichor drip off the machete onto the pavement as he tries to get his breath back and calm his racing heart.

Chris, who is also bent over, looks at him sideways . “Uh . . . _yeah_ ,” he gasps. “First off, librarians are usually nice people with degrees in library science who help you research stuff and find books you need, not whatever the hell _that_ was!” He takes a break for breath.

“Huh,” Will says, having a hard time imagining that.

“Libraries are _safe_! They’re like, where people go to research stuff! And hang out! And learn things!”

“You’re saying you didn’t learn anything in there just now?” Will asks, mostly to himself half under his breath, but Chris laughs anyways, a loud, gasping thing that makes Will laugh too, even though he really doesn’t quite have the breath for it yet. They stand there on the steps of the library cackling like a pair of idiots. Will eventually gives up on standing and sits down on the top step, setting the machete carefully to the side, finally just burying his head in his knees and letting the last of the adrenaline leave him in little side-hitching giggles.

“Whew,” Chris says eventually. “After an adventure like that, I need a dessert. Is there anywhere around here that does pie?”

Will takes one final deep breath to clear out the last of the giggles. “Uh, have you been to the Moonlite All-Nite Diner yet?” 

“No, sounds awesome though!”

“Yeah, it’s actually not too far from here, just a couple blocks down that way and then take a left,” Will says, gesturing.

“Well you wanna come with me and show me where it is? You could probably use some pie too, after all that.”

Will looks at the goo on his hands and lets out a sigh. “Yeah. Yeah, you know, I really _could_ use some pie,” he says. “Just let me clean up a bit, ‘kay?”

“Oh! Oh yeah, of course! Well, lead the way whenever you’re ready!”

* * *

“So what’s good here?” Chris asks, staring at the menu on the wall.

“Didn’t you say you’d wanted some French silk pie?” Will asks, confused. He stares at his hands. He’d managed to get most of it off with the rags and the alcohol wipes in his trunk, but there were still little stains of black in the crevices of his fingernails. 

“I mean, yeah, I’ll probably get that, but I was just wondering what _you_ like,” Chris says.

“Oh,” Will says. “Uh. Well. I mean, it’s all about the same, really. But the apple pie is probably my favorite.”

“Oh yeah?” Chris says. “I love a good apple pie. Is that what you’re gonna get?”

“Yeah probably,” Will says. “It’s marginally better than the visible strawberry pie.”

“ _Visible_ strawberry pie?”

“I mean, I’ve never tried the invisible kind. I kind of always assumed it’d be hard to eat,” Will says. He’s not sure why Chris seems so shocked by everything here in Night Vale, but after that fight with the Librarian, he’s too tired to dig any further into it. “Wanna find a seat?”

“Oh, sure!” Chris says. They settle into a little booth by a window.

Will stares out at the way the air is shimmering over the asphalt in the heat of the sun. 

“So, I know this is super embarrassing,” Chris starts. Will pulls his attention away from the window. “But I’m going to have to ask you to tell me your name again. I, uh, definitely forgot it.”

“No worries,” Will says. “It’s Will. Will Poindexter. Or Scoutmaster, I answer to that too.”

“Scoutmaster?” Chris asks. “No, wait, don’t answer that yet. I gotta think of a nickname for you. Poindexter, Dexter, Dex. Pokedex. Dexter’s Lab. Dex the Halls. Dex save.” He snorts after the last one. “No, you don’t seem like a fancy kind of person, so I think a plain nickname works best. How about Dex?”

“Sure?” Will says, a little confused. “What’s with the nickname?”

“Oh! It’s kind of a habit left over from when I was in hockey. I’ve noticed that if I give somebody a nickname, I remember their name way better. I mean, I might not remember your _actual_ name, but I’ll at least have something to call you by.”

“No worries,” Dex says, trying to put Chris out of his misery. “Hockey?”

“Yeah! Started when I was 8, played all the way through college. I was a goalie. It was great.”

“Sounds cool,” Will says. “I’m sorry, but I don’t really know a lot about hockey. We don’t really play it too much here, what with the desert and stuff.”

“Oh that’s fine!” Chris says. “I mean, I grew up in SoCal, which is basically a desert too, but there’s more people around so it’s easier to find things like ice rinks and stuff.”

“Makes sense. So what does the nickname thing have to do with hockey?” Will asks.

“Oh! Yeah! I forget that people don’t know that. Um, basically in hockey everyone gets a nickname, usually based on their last name or something about them. So like, my last name’s Chow, so everybody just called me Chowder instead of Chris.”

“Huh,” Will says. “So do you go by Chowder or Chris?”

“Whatever,” Chris says. “Both. Anything. My scientists and I all did nicknames because we thought it would be fun, but I’ll definitely still answer if you call me Chris.”

The waitress comes by to take their orders. Chris seems visibly startled by the branches growing from her, but he says nothing, even after she leaves. 

“So . . . Scoutmaster?” Chris asks.

“Yeah, I’m in charge of all the boy scouts in Night Vale.”

“That’s pretty cool! I was always kind of jealous of my friends that did boy scouts, but I didn’t really have time because of all the hockey stuff. So do you guys do a lot of camping and stuff?”

Will rambles on about scout things, relieved to have a topic he can ramble about that’s sort about himself but mostly not. Chris seems extremely interested, which is kind of nice and kind of disconcerting.

Their pie arrives. Will digs into his pie, and it’s the same sort of soggy bottomed bland cinnamon mush it normally is, but the normality is comforting. “How’s your pie?” he asks Chris, knowing full well that the French silk pie tastes like pie made out of chocolate pudding and powdered milk that’s been sitting in the back of the pantry a few too many months past its expiration date.

“It’s . . . fine,” Chris says. 

Will snorts. “Yeah, nothing here is really that great, but it’s the only place in town that does pie. For some reason it tastes better when it’s like, 2am. Maybe since it’s the only thing that’s open then.”

Chris makes a “makes sense” eyebrow lift and eats another bite. “Yeah, there’s this Denny’s near the hockey rink back home that’s the only thing open after like, 10pm, so a lot of times when a game would get out late the team and our parents and everybody would all pile in there and eat random stuff off the menu. It’s Denny’s, so you know, not super great, but pretty much anything is delicious when you’re 16 and starving and you’ve just been playing hockey for 2 hours.”

They eat their pie in silence for a bit.

“Oh hey! I heard on the radio the other day that you guys got some new scout ranks? Or something? What’s that about?” Chris asks.

Immediately, Will’s stomach drops. “Yeah, um. Yeah. New scout ranks. They’re, uh, a way for the scouts who are already Eagle Scouts to keep going, to, uh, give them more stuff to work on.” He’s not exactly sure what to say about it. Chris, not being from Night Vale, won’t understand the significance of them. And Chris has already been too horrified by Night Vale today; Will is sure that if he tried to explain, it would only get him into a conversation he really doesn’t have the energy for right now.

“Huh. That’s pretty cool! So, is it like, a Night Vale only thing, or are those going to be for all scouts now?”

Will shrugs. “I really have no idea; I’ve only done scouts in Night Vale.”

“Fair enough,” Chris says. “How do we pay the check, anyways? I should probably get back to my lab, since the library was a bust.”

“Oh, here,” Will says. He lifts the sugar container, where sure enough, their checks are waiting. He pulls them out and starts looking to see which one is his, but Chris grabs them out of his hand.

“I’ll get it,” Chris says. “It’s the least I can do for you totally saving my life.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” Will says. “Well, just stick it back under the sugar when you’re done.”

“Oh! You never did give me an answer about dinner,” Chris says. “You still interested?”

 _Is_ he interested? Will has to think. The attention is very flattering, and Chris is really easy to talk to, and also he’s not bad looking either, but — well. Time is short. Is it even worth trying to do anything? Besides the fact that he’s never going to be over Derek. He realizes he’s been quiet for too long as Chris’s smile falls a little.

“I. Um. Well. I’m still not sure,” Will says. “I really liked talking to you today. But, I’m really busy with all the new scout stuff. I don’t know if I’ll really have time to date.” It’s the mostly true answer.

“Okay, well, can I still get your number? I clearly don’t know enough about Night Vale yet, and you seem like a good person to have on speed dial.”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Will says, and types his number into Chris’s phone.

“Cool! I’ll definitely text you!” Chris says. “See you around!”

“You too,” Will says, and spends the next several minutes wondering if he used it correctly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chris and Will fight a librarian, which is not completely described, but is some sort of gooey tentacle beast. Will stabs it with a machete. It dies. He gets nasty goo all over his arms.


	3. The Blinking Light Up On The Mountain

> _There is, listeners, a blinking light up on the mountain. It is red. Blinking Lights are always red._
> 
> _It is nestled among the crags and nooks of the precipitous slope. We can all see it – no use denying it! The City Council tried. “Nope,” they said. “Blinking Light? Let me think. Blinking Light...no, sorry, it doesn’t ring any bells!”_
> 
> _But then a bell started ringing – a signal from the watchman who lives in Night Vale’s Invisible Clock Tower, letting us know that he had seen something. And we all saw it, too. It was a Blinking Light, up on the Mountain._
> 
> _“Oh well,” said the Council, crawling backwards through a window into Town Hall, one by one. “Ahh, well…it was worth a shot.”_
> 
> _What does this light mean? Who will dare investigate it? Will it spell our doom? Dear listeners, who knows? No one._
> 
> _And probably, more later. For now, just this. Just a blinking light – red – up on the mountain._

  


“Scoutmaster?”

“Yes, Hunter?”

“What _is_ that?” the scout asks, pointing to the dark mass on the horizon.

“It’s a mountain.”

“But mountains aren’t _real_.”

“I know. But that’s definitely a mountain,” Will says, continuing to pull arrows and reset the targets. 

“How do you know?” one of the other scouts piped up.

“You kind of just have to _feel_ it,” Will says, putting the arrows back in the big quiver where the bows are. “We’ll get into that a little more when we do our natural divination badge next month.”

“Cool.”

“Alright, everybody line up, we’re going to do one more round,” Will says, and the scouts shuffle obediently into line. 

> _John Peters – you know, the farmer? We haven’t heard from him in a while. If anyone knows where he went, or about the Blinking Light up on the Mountain, or the Mountain rising up out of this muddy plain outside of town, please call in to the station and let us know what’s up._

“Should we check on him?” one of the other scouts pipes up as they’re cleaning up the archery supplies. “I mean, it’s a scout’s job to make sure everyone is safe, right?”

Will considers the suggestion for a moment. “Yeah, you’re right, that _is_ a good idea, Javier. We’ll go check on him before we go get ice cream, okay?”

The scouts all pile into the back of the truck, with the two youngest in the cab with him. 

(“But Scoutmaster, it’s so much more _fun_ in the back!” 

“I know, but a scout is responsible, and since you’re the youngest, it’s my job to make sure you’re safe.” 

“Awwwwwwwww, cummon.” 

“Nope. Now get in here.”)

They rattle and bounce their way along the road up to the farm. The mountain gets bigger and stranger, yet somehow seemingly no closer. The ground along the road turns from familiar dust brown sand to dark brown shiny mud. They scouts all chatter and exclaim and yell as their snatches of conversation get whisked away by the wind.

As they get closer to the farmhouse where John Peters, y’know, the farmer, usually lives, the mood grows more somber. There’s no sign of the farmhouse. The fields of invisible corn, while usually empty-looking due to the invisible nature of the corn, are basically nonexistent. In their place, a plain of dark, flat, wet brown mud stretches as far as the eye can see, all the way out to the base of the mountain. Will stops the truck by the side of the road where the driveway to the farmhouse should be. As he turns off the engine, a half-dozen boys jump out onto the gravel shoulder and look around.

“Well this is weird,” says Franklin, the oldest.

“Hey, what’s this?” asks Tyler, one of the youngest, barrelling out of the truck cabin and into the mud. 

“Wait!” Will yells, but of course it’s too late. Tyler bends down and pulls something white out of the mud.

“What’s this?” Tyler says, as the other scouts crowd around to look at it.

Will takes the object out of Tyler’s hands. He realizes instantly that it’s a bone of some kind, bleached white and covered in mud. There’s not really enough of it to tell what kind of animal (or human) it’s from, but even this fragment is huge, and it’s clearly been dead for quite a while. Will looks out over the strange mud plain and realizes that the whole entire plain is lumpy with more white shapes, miles and miles of bones, all the way up to the mountain. He drops the bone he’s holding.

“Back in the truck, boys,” he says, trying to strike a balance between a tone that brooks no argument and one that’s too serious and scares the boys. Juwan, one of the older scouts, looks at him sharply and raises an eyebrow.

“But what _was_ that thing?” Tyler asks, pouting that Will threw it away. 

“A bone,” Will says shortly. “Come on, get back in everyone.”

“But what about John Peters, y’know, the farmer?” another scout asks. “The farmhouse is gone!”

“I know,” Will says. “But wherever he is, I don’t think we can do anything for him now, and I don’t think we should stay here.” He shoos the boys back into the truck. “Let’s get back into town and we can go get ice cream.”

“Ice cream!!!!” the younger ones shriek. Franklin, Donovan, and Juwan — the oldest boys — are still looking at him contemplatively, but they say nothing, and hop in last after making sure everyone else is in. Will jumps into the driver’s seat and turns the key. The truck roars to life with little fuss and he makes a quick sigil of gratitude on his chest.

* * *

The rest of the afternoon is mostly uneventful. The boys enjoy their ice cream. They pester him with questions about the mountain and the field of bones and where John Peters, y’know, the farmer, might be if he isn’t on his farm, but Will does his best to deflect the questions to lighter topics, like how everyone is doing with the archery badge, and which badges they want to work on next. He drops them all safely off at their homes.

Finally, just as night is falling, he gets the chance to do what he’s been itching to do all afternoon — check on Chris. Admittedly, nothing bad seems to have happened because of the mountain and the blinking light (yet!), but he’s finding more and more that whenever something bad happens in Night Vale, as it often does, his first instinct is to go check on Chris and his scientists. To make sure they’re okay, to see if they need any help, to see if they have any ideas for what might keep people safe. Chris had been invaluable with his tip about the wheat and wheat by-products, and Will had stopped underestimating Chris’s ability to take care of himself since the library incident, but, well — 

Will stops thinking about it and lets his truck rumble him onwards towards Chris’s house. It’s a fifty-fifty shot at this point whether he’s back home or still at the lab, and since the lab is closer, he figures he’ll try there first.

Luckily, the light is on, so Chris is probably home. Will parks in the driveway and shuffles up to the door to knock.

Chris appears, wearing an apron and holding a wooden spoon. “Will!” he exclaims happily. “Come on in, dinner’s almost done.”

Will realizes belatedly that he’s only eaten ice cream since breakfast. His stomach growls. Chris laughs. “Sounds like you caught me at just the right time!”

Will is horrified at his own lack of manners — dropping in unannounced at dinner time, hungry, as if he’d expected Chris to feed him. He explains as much to Chris, but Chris just laughs. 

“Oh, don’t even worry about it. I totally always just make a big batch of whatever so I can freeze the rest, so there’s plenty of food. It’s nothing fancy or anything, but it’s tasty — or at least _I_ think it’s tasty. So. Yeah! You’re totally welcome to have some,” Chris rambles as he lets Will in, shuts the door, and walks back to the kitchen with Will trailing awkwardly behind him. “Hopefully you don’t mind — it’s like this weird thing my mom used to make when I was a kid, I think she got the recipe from my grandma or something, we always call it taggerina — it’s like, mac and cheese, pasta sauce, hamburger, spinach, corn, extra cheese. Sounds hella weird but it’s actually delicious and like, super easy to make.”

“Sure, sounds great,” Will says. How had he not noticed how hungry he was?

“Here, dish up as much as you want,” Chris says, handing Will a bowl and the serving spoon.

Will slops up a big spoonful into his bowl and stands around waiting for Chris to tell him where to sit.

“Oh!” Chris says when he notices Will standing around. “You can just sit anywhere. I usually sit at the island since it feels less weird to eat alone there than at the kitchen table. To be honest, I don’t even think the dining room table has room to sit at it since I haven’t finished unpacking yet and there’s still boxes all over it.” Chris looks around at all the boxes with a slightly guilty expression.

“Makes sense to me,” Will says, sitting down on a bar stool.

“Hah, well, I’m glad you don’t think I’m _too_ weird,” Chris says.

“Nah,” Will says, digging into the food. He lets out a surprised hum at how delicious it is. Chris laughs delightedly. Will feels a blush start to roar up the back of his neck and towards his ears. 

“Sorry, I guess I was hungrier than I thought, but this is super good,” Will says. He shovels another bite into his mouth both because it is indeed delicious and to stop himself from saying anything stupid.

Chris is still grinning. “No worries! I know it doesn’t look like anything special, but I wasn’t lying when I said that it’s delicious. I’m glad it’s not just because of nostalgia.”

“No, this is great,” Will says.

“So what brings you here this evening?” Chris asks. “I know it’s not because you were hoping to score some of my cooking.”

“Sorry,” Will mumbles, and ducks his head as his blush comes roaring back.

“Like I said, don’t worry about it, it’s nice to have some company for dinner,” Chris says. “Just wanted to see how I was doing? Making sure I didn’t get eaten by anything today? Hoping I’d research something for you?”

“Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh . . . yep. Pretty much.”

“What, to all of it?” Chris asks.

“Basically,” Will says. “Did you notice the blinking red light today? With the mountain and the flood plain and the bones and the masked army?”

“What???” Chris says.

“You really didn’t notice?” Will says. “Have you been outside today?”

“No, actually,” Chris says. “I took the day off. What’s going on out there?”

“Well, it’ll probably be easier if you just go outside and look for yourself,” Will says. “I don’t think the masked army is quite here yet.”

Chris shovels the last couple bites into his mouth (where had it all disappeared so fast?) and stands up abruptly. “Well I’ve gotta see this,” he says.

“You can probably see it better out the back,” Will says, and Chris heads out the sliding door into the backyard of his house. There, stretching into the night sky, is the mountain. The red light at the top has only grown brighter, and as it blinks on, off, on, off, it seems like the whole world has turned red and is blinking on and off in time with the light. The ground is rumbling with the crash of a thousand footsteps. In between the darkness of the mountain and the red light glinting off of the bone-scattered floodplain, heaving figures move inexorably closer. 

“Oh! This thing,” Chris says, totally calm. “I’ve totally seen this thing before.”

“What?” Will says. He can’t recall ever having seen anything like this in Night Vale before, and he tries to keep a careful log of things he’s encountered so that he can be prepared for it if it comes up again.

“Yeah, it’s just a mirage,” Chris says. “Although this is a really strong one and it’s kind of weird that it would still be around at night when it’s dark and everything has cooled off, but yeah. Totally seen the whole, mountains, blinking light thing before, although the masked army is new. It usually disappears in a couple of hours.”

“Huh,” Will says.

“Thanks for checking up on me, though!” Chris says. “I still don’t really have a handle on what’s dangerous and what isn’t here in Night Vale. It’s, uh, really different from anywhere else I’ve ever lived.”

“Yeah, well,” Will says and swallows. “Wouldn’t want anything to happen to Night Vale’s favorite scientist.

Chris ducks his head, embarrassed smile tugging at his lips. “Stop, you’re as bad as the radio guy.”

Will’s heart drops, just a little, at the mention of Derek. “Why, what’s the matter with Derek?” Will asks, torn between wanting to defend Derek and trying to tell himself he doesn’t care about Derek anymore.

“Oh, you know, it just sounds like he’s making fun of me,” Chris says. “It’s so awkward. I mean, I’m so average. Why would he call me perfect? And he sounds so ‘cool radio guy’ about it too, it just sounds so sarcastic. Which would be like, fine, coming from a friend, but I’ve literally only spoken to him like, twice.”

“Oh, no no no,” Will says. “First of all, you are definitely _not_ average.”

Chris looks down and smiles. “That’s very nice of you to say.”

“And second,” Will barrells on, trying not to think about what he’d just said, “he’s super into being ‘chill’ and ‘cool’ on the radio, so that’s literally just what he sounds like. I promise you he’s not being sarcastic. At least, not about this.”

“Huh,” Chris says. “Really?”

“Yep,” Will says. “I’ve known Derek since we were kids and this is actually the most excited I’ve heard him about something in years.”

“Huh,” Chris says again. “Oh, that reminds me. He called me today. I didn’t feel like picking up, so I didn’t. Maybe it was about this whole ‘blinking light’ thing. I should probably call him back so he can let everybody know it’s nothing to be worried about. Mind if I just pop out for a second?”

“No, that’s fine,” Will says. Chris steps out onto the back porch. Even though he should still probably eat more, his food suddenly looks unappealing, and the stuff he’s already eaten feels solid and uncomfortable in his stomach. He doesn’t know why he should be affected like this. After all, he turned Chris down. He turned Chris down for good reason. He doesn’t get to have opinions on what — or who — either Chris or Derek get up to anymore. And would it really be so bad if they got together? He’s not going to be around much longer, after all, and maybe it would be for the best. He and Chris are already too good of friends; he’s not going to be able to disappear painlessly from his life the way he’d planned. 

He forces himself to eat the last couple bites and then goes to the sink to wash the bowl.

“Well, that’s all taken care of,” Chris says, stepping back into the house. “You up to anything else tonight?”

“I, uh, I should probably go,” Will says. “Thank you for dinner though. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Well, you’re welcome to stay if you want,” Chris says. “We could put on a movie or something? I think I’ve got those unpacked.”

Will hesitates. He really should probably go. But he also doesn’t want to, doesn’t want to be alone in his house, alone with his thoughts about Derek and Chris and the impending eventuality of one or more of the boys becoming an Eternal Scout. 

“Sure,” he says eventually. 

“Sweet!” Chris says, and starts pawing through a half-unpacked box to look for something to watch.

They settle down on the couch to watch some action movie Will’s never heard of with lots of car chases and cheap explosions. It’s nice, this comfortable quiet _existence_ together. He’s almost forgotten what it’s like to have a _friend_. And if he finds himself thinking about sliding just a bit closer, about what it would be like if they cuddled up next to each other instead of on opposite ends of the couch, well — it’s not like Will’s never felt that way about a friend before.


	4. Late Night Arby's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will says more than he means to

Will gets a text from Chris late one evening:

**Chris:** Hey, I’m still at the lab and I’m probably going to be here a while but I need something to eat  
  
**Chris:** Can you pick up some Arby’s for me?  
  
**Chris:** I would be eternally grateful  
  
**Will:** Sure, no prob

Will parks in front of Chris’s lab and jumps out of the truck with a big bag of Arby’s in hand. Chris is hunched over a table with a tiny screwdriver kit, surrounded by piles of clocks, watches, timers, and stopwatches. He keeps checking something on his computer, then something on the desk, and then sighing. He looks up when Will comes in and a giant grin nearly splits his face in half.

“Dex!!” he exclaims. “You’re amazing, my dude. What a _lifesaver_. Seriously. I am _so hungry_ right now, you have no idea.”

“Well, I just got a whole bunch of stuff, so go ahead and pick whatever. I’ll eat whatever you don’t want.”

“Oh, had you not had dinner yet either?”

“No, hadn’t got around to it yet.”

“Sweet! You’ll stay and eat with me, right?”

“Yeah, sure,” Will says.

“Here, let’s take this to a table that’s a little less full of science,” Chris says, and they find their way to a little table in the corner of the lab. “This is where me and the others usually eat our lunches, to make sure the crumbs don’t get into anything important.”

“Makes sense,” Will says. 

“Here, let’s just start pulling stuff out and we can decide as we go,” Chris says, stacking all the little cardboard boxes up and pouring the fries out onto a napkin. He grabs a curly fry that snaps halfway to his mouth and he catches it with his other hand, stuffing both halves into his mouth in quick succession and groaning happily. “Ugh, god, curly fries are _the best_ ,” he mumbles through the food.

Will unwraps a roast beef sandwich and squirts a packet of Arby’s sauce onto it. “So what’ve you been up to today? What’s got you here so late?”

Chris inhaled slowly and then sighed very heavily, staring pointedly off to one side. 

“Oh, wow, should I not have asked?” Will said.

“No, it’s fine, it’s just. Something is wrong with time here in Night Vale and I can’t figure out what.”

“Oh, I heard that you called into the radio to report something?”

“Yeah . . . I. I don’t know what’s going on exactly, but it kind of seems like time in Night Vale is slowing down? And then I thought maybe it was just the clock I was using? Especially because I opened it up and instead of regular clock parts it just had a bunch of weird gray goo in it? But every clock I’ve taken apart has had weird gray goo in it and I really don’t know what _that_ means. How do they even work if they’re not keeping time like normal clocks? How can I be sure what time it is here in Night Vale?”

“That sounds . . . rough,” Will said, not really knowing what to say to that. “I, uh, can’t really relate since I’ve never lived anywhere other than Night Vale, but it sounds like it’s messing up your science.”

“I mean, it’s kind of messing up my science? I guess? But more it just got me distracted from what I was originally working on. But now I can’t go back to what I was doing before without figuring out what’s going on with this _first_ , so . . . yeah. It’s been a weird day.”

They spend several seconds chewing in mutual silence. 

“Oh!” Chris says. “And _then_ , as if all this wasn’t weird enough, I ended up trying to meet up with Derek to talk to him about the time thing, and I’m pretty sure he thought it was a date.”

“Oh yeah?” Will says. His insides are doing complicated gymnastics inside him, but he forces them to settle down so he can listen to his _friend_ talk about _friend things_ and he can be supportive of _his friend_. 

“Yeah, I just wanted to explain to him a little bit better what I meant when I called in earlier, because it just seems like the kind of thing that’s easier to explain in person than over the phone, especially than over a voicemail. But the way he got all flustered when I asked him if we could just sit down for coffee, I knew he probably thought I meant something else.”

“Okay,” Will says.

“But like, I really wanted to get the word out about this time thing that I’ve been working on, so I decided to go through with it anyways. Like, whatever, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“So anyways, I spent like half an hour trying to explain to him what I wanted him to ask his listeners for, but he just kept kind of staring and smiling and saying ‘wow, that’s so chill!’ so I’m pretty sure he wasn’t even listening to anything I was saying. I gave up after I asked him about the clock tower and he looked at me like I was dumb for not knowing that it’s apparently _invisible_ and _teleports_.”

“. . . is that not how clock towers are where you’re from?” Will asks, trying not to wince at the thought of Derek staring moonily at Chris. Although he honestly couldn’t tell if he was more jealous of Chris or of Derek. And wasn’t _that_ a strange thought.

Chris rolls his eyes, but fondly. “Nope, definitely not.”

“Huh. Well. Sorry it was weird. And sorry Night Vale is breaking your science again.”

“No, it’s fine,” Chris says. I mean, I knew Night Vale was supposed to be scientifically interesting. It’s why I moved here. I just didn’t realize _how_ scientifically interesting, I guess.” He makes a gesture at the last roast beef sandwich and raises an eyebrow at Will as if to ask if he wants it. Will shakes his head, and Chris grabs it and starts unwrapping it. “You said you’ve known Derek since you were kids, right?” he asks suddenly.

Will jumps a little. “Yup.”

“What’s he _normally_ like? Like, when he’s not under the spell of whatever weird crush he’s got on me.”

Will looks down at the table and tries to be very interested in the last of the curly fries. “Uh. I mean, I’m not really sure I’m the best person to ask that. Yeah, we were really close when we were younger but we haven’t really talked in a long time. Once he started getting into the radio stuff more, back in high school.”

“Oh yeah?” Chris said, with an interested quirk to his eyebrow that made Will immediately start going over what he’d just said to see if he’d said anything unusual or that had let on more than he meant to. The words seem fine, maybe his tone of voice . . . ?

“Yeah, um. Well. Once he, uh, knew he wanted to go into radio, he started trying to act all “cool” and “chill” because he thought that’s what a radio host should sound like. He was less and less fun to be around, and after a while he just . . . forgot about me, I guess.” Will has no idea how this is coming across. No one in Night Vale has ever asked him about this since they were all there to witness it or weren’t there and didn’t think to bring it up. No one in Night Vale that wasn’t there knew that Scoutmaster Poindexter and Derek, the Voice of Night Vale, used to be best friends. Best friends, and maybe more. 

“Wow, dude, that sucks,” Chris says.

“He’s not a bad guy or anything, though,” Will says. “Being the Voice of Night Vale is a lot of pressure. It makes sense that he kind of had to, to focus on the radio stuff. He does a good job. But yeah, I haven’t really talked to him in a while, so.”

“Well, I’m sorry dude. Didn’t realize. We can, uh, talk about something else.”

“I just, I don’t want you to think badly of him or anything,” Will says more quietly. There’s a weird hush in the air and he’s trying to not to pay attention to the way it’s weighing on his chest. He doesn’t want to accidentally warn Chris off of Derek, especially not right before he’s about to disappear. Chris will need a friend, and with the way Derek is clearly gone on him, maybe he could be there if Chris will let him. “He plays up the cool, chill, sarcastic guy on the radio, but he’s really not like that. He cares really deeply about things, and he’s fiercely loyal to what he cares about. He sometimes gets a little lost in his own head, but he’s very smart. He gets really excited about stuff. He’s a fantastic storyteller, as you can probably tell from the radio. He’s . . . I dunno. He’s a good guy, I promise.”

Will looks up from staring at his hands, and Chris is staring at him with his head cocked to the side, as if trying to figure something out. After a couple seconds, he seemingly snaps out of it and goes back to his sandwich. “Okay! I’ll keep that in mind when I run into him again.” 

There’s silence for a little longer, and Will can’t quite keep his heart from pounding, but the silence has lost its oppressive tang and has mostly settled back into contented food sharing.

Eventually Chris says, “So what’s going on with _you_ these days? I heard on the radio that the boys were working on their invisibility badges or something?”

Will nods. “Yep.”

“Wow, that’s wild. I know I wasn’t ever a scout, but man, you guys have some wild merit badges. What _is_ the invisibility badge, anyways? Like, learning how to _be_ invisible?”

“Well, it kind of covers a lot of stuff. Basics are like, how to detect the presence of things that are invisible, how to make an invisible thing visible. Then later we get into the more advanced stuff like how to make other stuff invisible, how to make yourself invisible for short periods of time. That’s pretty advanced, though; we don’t really require the boys to be able to do that to get the badge.”

Chris just shakes his head. “Wild, man.” He stands up, dusts curly fry crumbs off his hands, and starts stuffing paper and leftover condiments into bags. “Well, I’m probably going to jump back into the Science; I still have a lot of stuff I want to try and figure out. Thank you so much for bringing me dinner though! I really appreciate it.”

“Yeah, uh, no problem,” Will says. “Good luck with your science. Hopefully you figure out whatever it is you’re working on?”

“Thanks! Probably not tonight, but we’ll get there I think,” Chris says, tossing the bag into a garbage bin. “It’s always good talking to you, we should hang out again when I’m not so busy. Oh! And you should definitely feel free to stop by the lab any time if you need anything or you just want to chat or whatever. I know you’re pretty busy with the scout stuff but you can always hang out here. Oh! And if you ever want to do like, some sort of science badge — do they have those? — just let me know and you guys can come over and use the equipment.”

“Wow, uh, thanks,” Will says. “They’d probably love that.” There’s probably not enough time for that to happen before Franklin and Donovan become Eternal Scouts, but it’s a nice offer. “I’ll, uh, see you round.”

“Bye!!” Chris says, already head down in his pile of clock pieces.


	5. The Eternal Scout Ceremony

> _Exciting news from the Night Vale chapter of the Boy Scouts. Two of their members — Franklin Wilson and Barton Donovan — have achieved all the necessary requirements to advance from the rank of Fear Scout to that final and most terrible of ranks: Eternal Scout. The ceremony will take place at an unspecified time today, in the Hole in the Vacant Lot Out Back of the Ralph’s, and anyone is invited to attend._

It’s today. The terrible day foretold by the tablets under City Hall. The last day of the rest of his life. 

Will is dressed in his scout uniform, freshly washed and also ironed. He’s even wearing the scout-issue pants, and the hat instead of the baseball cap. He’d polished his shoes, last night in the wee hours of the morning when he couldn’t sleep. He’d thrown out the food in his fridge, locked the door behind him.

He’d done the interview with Derek. It was harder, so much harder than he’d thought it would be, to have Derek interview him as if he were a stranger. He’d tried, one last time, to get Derek to acknowledge what they’d had and what they’d been, but Derek had just looked at him blankly and written down the quote.

All that’s left is to say goodbye to Chris. Chris doesn’t know, of course, what the outcome of this will be. Will’s not sure he wants to be the one to break it to him. But he can’t leave without saying goodbye, at least. He can’t. 

He parks his truck outside of the lab. Whiskey is looking at something under a microscope. Foxtrot is in the corner, swearing softly at a large piece of lab equipment whose function Will couldn’t even begin to name. 

“Is Chris — Chowder — around?” he asks.

Foxtrot looks up from the machine. “Oh hey Dex. He just popped out to get some lunch. Should be back —” she was cut off by a clattering from the door as Chris staggered in with his arms full of Arby’s bags. “— yep, any minute now.” 

“Food’s here!!” he said in that perpetually cheery way of his. “Oh! Dex! You’re here too! What’s the occasion? Want any Arby’s? They were having a five for five so I just bought a whole bunch of stuff. Plus, I mean, curly fries. Pretty sure this whole bag here is just curly fries,” he says, fishing one out and popping it into his mouth.

Will’s throat felt swollen. He tried to swallow but it only made it feel like he’d tried to swallow a mouthful of sand and it had gotten stuck halfway down. “I’m good,” he said eventually, after several throat clearing noises. His stomach was way too tied in knots to even _think_ about eating, let alone the weird lettuce wrap things Arby’s had taken to selling in the wake of the ban on wheat and wheat by-products. “I, actually, um,” he cleared his throat again, “well I don’t know if you heard but it’s the Eternal Scout ceremony today.”

“Oh right, that’s today?” Chris says. “I still think all these extra scout levels are hella cool. This is a big deal for you, right? Haven’t they been working on this like, basically since I got here?”

“Yeah,” Will says. “Yeah, it’s, um.” He trails off awkwardly.

“So did you like, want me to come? Can people who aren’t boy scouts even come to one of these? I assume it’s not like a regular court of honor thing.”

“Better not,” says Will, shuddering. He wants Chris to stay as far away as possible from whatever is going to happen there. “I just— wanted to say goodb— stop by beforehand. Just. You’ve been a really great friend, Chris. Chowder. Just. Um. I hope you know that.”

All of the scientists have looked up from what they were doing and are staring at him now. Chris’s brows are furrowed in confusion, like he’s trying to figure something out. “Dex— what’s wrong?” he asks.

“N-nothing,” Will stammers, knowing that he’s completely shit at hiding his feelings. “It’s fine, it’s fine. Just nervous before the ceremony.”

Chris has completely set all of the food things down on a lab table and moved over to stand in front of him. Chris puts a hand on his arm. Chris’s gaze is sharp and penetrating, as if Will has suddenly become Scientifically Interesting.

“Dex,” Chris says gently, “what’s the matter?” He makes some sort of gesture and the other two scientists grab the food and quietly shuffle off to a different room of the lab, leaving the two of them alone.

Will closes his eyes and says nothing, pinching his lips to try and prevent a sudden sob from escaping. Can’t do anything about the itchy wet feeling in his eyes, though. 

“You’re telling me that of all the crazy shit in Night Vale, a _scout ceremony_ is what’s finally going to do you in?”

_It’s written,_ Will thinks. _Derek will be the Voice of Night Vale, I will be Scoutmaster . . . and then I won’t be._ He still can’t bear to look at Chris, so he says nothing and keeps his eyes closed. His breath hitches.

Chris puts his other hand on Will’s other arm. Will finally opens his eyes, and sure enough, the affection and concern in Chris’s gaze is almost unbearable, warm enough to burn. “Hey,” Chris says. “You’re gonna be fine. We fought a Librarian together, remember? You’re one of the bravest, smartest, strongest people I know, so I’m sure you’re gonna be just—”

The distance between them had been slowly lessening, and Will just can’t resist any longer. He closes the distance between them, cutting off the rest of Chris’s words with a kiss. And oh, what a kiss! Perfect, like the rest of Chris. Soft and strong and caring and — as the kiss stretched on — fierce. Chris deepened the kiss, pushing into Will and pulling him closer, wrapping his arms around him, splaying his hand on his back and rubbing soothing circles into his shirt. Will managed to get his arms up and around into Chris’s (wonderfully perfect) hair, and Will felt himself moan into Chris’s mouth. Will lets himself have this, the culmination of the feelings that have been growing since the day he said no to that first date, lets himself bask in it for just for this briefest of moments. He’d already ruined his plan to not get attached, to not let Chris get attached to him, so maybe for once in his life he can be selfish. He can only hope that Chris will forget him like Derek did, and he can fade gracefully from both their lives. He’s crying, now, at the care and the comfort and the concern that Chris is exuding, and he breaks away and buries his head in Chris’s shoulder. He tries (and fails) not to get tears on Chris’s perfect lab coat, and Chris just holds him while he shakes, running his hands up and down, up and down, until Will can breathe again.

When he finally feels up to pulling away again, Will finds that the frantic tension from earlier is gone, replaced by a bone-deep feeling that everything will be alright. Well, not for him personally, perhaps. But life will go on, and Derek and Chris will both be fine. Maybe even together, if he can swing it. 

“Dex, I — are you sure there’s nothing I can do for you?” Chris says, reaching out hesitantly to wipe away a tear track from his face.

“Yeah. Um. Yeah. There’s one thing, actually,” Will says, wiping the rest of his face and taking some deep breaths. Chris looks at him expectantly. “Just — give Derek a chance for me, okay?”

“What?” Chris says, staring at him blankly.

“I’ve got to go, ceremony starts in twenty minutes and it’ll take me fifteen to get there. But. Thanks. For everything. You’ve been a real good friend, Chris.” He turns towards the door.

“What??!!?” Chris says, yanking him back to face him. “You can’t just waltz in here and kiss me and leave me with that! Give Derek a chance?? What do you even mean? I don’t _want_ Derek, I want _you_!”

Will shakes himself out of Chris’s grip as gently as possible. “I really gotta go,” he says, still heading for the door. He can’t look at Chris anymore or he might turn back.

Chris splutters. “Okay but we’re talking about this later!!” Will hears as the doors close behind him. He smiles a wry little smile and heads for the truck.

* * *

As the mute children drag him down to the abyss, he closes his eyes, thinks once again of the feeling of Chris’s perfect lips on his, and smiles.


	6. Interlude

In the wake of the Eternal Scout Ceremony, Chris drifts. He thought he’d been getting the hang of Night Vale. He thought he’d started to understand. But with Dex gone, he’s back to square one. He understands nothing. Maybe if he can just throw himself back into the science— 

He doesn’t leave the lab for weeks. 

* * *

On the radio, Derek is talking about a tiny army coming out of Lane 5 of the Bowling Alley and Arcade Fun Complex. Chris can’t help but wonder what Dex would do if he were here. Dex, who was prepared for almost everything. Dex, who saved him from a librarian and checked up on him during the mirage. Dex “just doing my daily good turn, I guess.” Dex “Well a scout is always supposed to be kind.” Dex would do something about this. So instead of sitting around his lab all day moping, maybe _Chris_ should do something about this.

But Chris is _not_ prepared for what he finds under Lane 5. The army is small and swift and sharp, and instead of saving the day, Chris is lying bleeding on the floor. And on the radio that’s playing in the background, he can hear Derek’s voice breaking (for him? For him.) He’ll have to keep working on this saving-the-town thing, he thinks. But maybe if he can’t do _this_ part yet, he can at least honor Dex’s last request and give Derek a chance.

* * *

It’s hard, at first, to try and get to know Derek for himself, without the slight cloud of resentment Chris still holds for what Dex told him about their pasts. At first, all Chris can think about is the pained look on Dex’s face when he’d said that they used to be friends, but Derek had moved on and forgot. But he also clings to Dex’s description of Derek as so much more than his radio personality.

They go on dates. Dex is right, Derek _is_ sweet. He puts dots on Chris for dot day, and writes him poems for Poetry week. He makes him dinner and takes him to see Khoshek and the kittens. He watches the lights above the Arby’s with him and sings him strange lullabies. He teaches him about the history of Night Vale. He’s not Dex, and Chris still feels the ache of that loss sometimes, but it’s good. It’s good.

* * *

StrexCorp buys the radio station, and Chris can feel the toll it takes on Derek. He plays up his “chill” veneer on the radio, but Chris can see the hidden anger when they’re at home together, the way Derek is always tense and about to shake out of his skin. 

Chris sees Dex’s former scouts training with Tamika Flynn and does his best to slip them potentially useful supplies from his lab when he can.

He feels the throb of the Smiling God in the way the sunlight burns hotter than usual, the way the night never seems to cool off anymore. He misses nights spent stargazing in the cool of the desert, nights spent pondering the lights over the Arby’s, nights spent in the mint-neon glow of the Moonlite All-Nite Diner. Night belongs in Night Vale and Derek deserves to live unafraid.

He throws himself into investigating the old oak doors and the house that doesn’t exist. He knows, deep in his bones, that these are _important_ somehow. He hasn’t seen Derek in weeks, it feels like, just text messages and snatches of radio. 

The door of the house that doesn’t exist slams shut behind him and he knows he’s in trouble. But the only way out is in, now, and he’s got to find a way out.

He makes it, somehow, to the other side of the old oak doors just as everything is going down. But the terrible, searing rumbling of the Smiling God is threatening everyone: Tamika Flynn, Old Woman Josie and the Erikas, the masked army. And, well, a door is not so much different from a goal net, after all, with a post on each side and a lintel at the top. Chris can hold the doors until the helicopters are down and the the Strex employees are gone and the masked army is all home.

It’s only when the last door closes that Chris realizes it has closed behind him and he is no longer in Night Vale. That he’s guarded his goal and guarded his Derek and guarded his town and it no longer has room for him. 

He wonders, briefly, what Dex’s last glimpse of Night Vale looked like, in the moments before he was dragged away.

* * *

* * *

_Derek and Will were snuggled up in their sleeping bags, bundled up tight against the chill air of the desert air. The stars hung above them, glittering, while the fire outside the tent flickered lower and lower._

_“Are you nervous?” Derek whispered, not turning his head. Will could feel the warmth of Derek’s smooth cheek only a fraction of an inch away._

_“Yeah,” Will whispered back. Will couldn’t have said why they were whispering, since no one was around. Maybe it felt too much like scout trips where they’d be reprimanded for talking too loudly and keeping the others up. Maybe the weight of what was to come was too nerve wracking. Maybe this was what it always felt like, out under the vast expanse of stars — too small to make anything but the smallest of noises._

_“What’re you hoping it says?” Derek asked._

_“I don’t even know,” Will said. “Yours is absolutely going to say ‘radio host,’ for sure.”_

_“Stop! You’ll jinx it!” Derek said, only half joking, and whacked him through the sleeping bag. “Come on, you’ve got to want to be_ something, _” he said._

_“I just — can’t imagine doing anything but scouts,” Will said. “I don’t know. I can’t really see myself as a grow up doing grown up stuff. Going to a job.”_

_Derek did look over then, wriggling around in his sleeping bag until he was able to prop himself up on one arm and look at Will. “Why not? You’re good at like, everything. You’ll be good at whatever it is you’re destined to do.”_

_Will felt a blush coming up his face so he pulled up the sleeping bag up over his head to hide it._

_Derek tugged it back down slowly. “Cummon man, don’t hide.”_

_“You’re so embarrassing,” Will mumbled._

_“Don’t be like that man,” Derek laughed, only mock offended. He wriggled back into his sleeping bag and pulled it up to warm his arms. “I mean it though. Don’t worry about it. You’ll be great at it, whatever it is.”_

_In the distance, a coyote howled._

_“What if—” Will started, then fell silent._

_“What if what?” Derek asked after a while._

_“What if — what if we can’t be together anymore? Once we know?”_

_Derek scoffed. “Why would that happen? We’ll both still be in Night Vale, right?”_

_“Well, yeah, but —”_

_“Then we’ll always be together. You and me, man.” Derek rolled up onto one arm again and stared at Will with an intense expression on his face._

_Will swallowed, his throat suddenly tight for reasons he couldn’t fathom. Derek’s face is now mere inches from his own. Will found himself chewing his lip self-consciously, while flicking rapidly between Derek’s eyes and lips. His chest tightened as well. Was Derek going to—?_

_And sure enough, Derek leaned forward just enough to press their lips together. Will wasn’t sure what he was expecting a kiss to be like. Derek’s lips were dry and soft and strange all at once._

_It was over almost as soon as it began, and Will looked up at Derek in wonder._

_Derek collapsed back to the ground and buried his face in Will’s shoulder as if suddenly embarrassed._

_“Hey,” Will said softly. Derek looked up at him, only the whites of his eyes glistening in the dark. “You and me, man.” Will couldn’t keep the smile off his face, even as he shimmied further into the covers and rolled towards Derek. “Together forever.”_


	7. Awake

> _So, everybody, I’ve been seeing reviews for that new restaurant, Tourniquet. Sounds like executive chef LaShawn Mason has created a real culinary hit. It’s totally impossible to get a reservation there right now. I tried to get a table for . . . well, for . . . for just one, of course, and the nearest available date was two whole months away!_
> 
> _Gia Samuel’s review in the latest issue of the Night Vale Daily Journal mentioned Tourniquet sous chef Will Poindexter, which surprised me._
> 
> _We . . . knew each other pretty well as kids. Were . . ._ best _friends, actually, and I had no idea he was a professional chef. It also surprised me because he was dragged away by the herd of mute children at the Eternal Scout ceremony last year. Pretty much nobody survives Boy Scout Courts of Honor, especially not those dragged away by the mute children. So, it’s good to see Will back home and safe, and my guess is that we’ll see him back as Scoutmaster too. So . . . hopefully someday I can get a reservation at his restaurant._

Will wakes up. A small hand is pushing his shoulder, shaking him awake.

Will opens his eyes.

A small boy with the whitest hair and palest skin Will has ever seen is standing at his bedside, milky white eyes completely blank. He is holding up a backpack.

Will must have been dreaming something particularly vivid last night, because he can’t for the life of him remember anything. He can’t remember having a child, can’t even remember what he’s been doing the last few months. Did he get reeducated recently? He raises a hand to scrub over his face and is surprised at the amount of scruff he finds there. When did he grow a beard? Whatever it is that happened must have gotten him really good this time.

The kid is still staring at him expectantly. 

“Okay, okay,” Will grumbles. “Just hang on a second.” He sits up and rubs his face more fully. “Are you dressed? Do you need breakfast?”

The kid looks at him, cocks his head to the side as if thinking, then shakes his head decisively. 

“You sure?” Will asks. There’s no way he’s letting a child go hungry on his watch. Especially not _his_ child. If this _is_ his child. Sweet city council, why can’t he remember anything? At least if the kid is going to school, there’s only one school for him to go to. “Alright, well, you got shoes?”

The kid looks down at his feet where, sure enough, he’s wearing shoes.

“Alright. Great. Okay. Well. Let’s get you to school, then,” Will says. Hopefully he still has the truck, or some way to get around. There’s keys in the bowl by the door, and sure enough, his trusty blue truck is there in the driveway, looking exactly like the last time he remembers it, except covered in a thick layer of dust and sand. He helps the kid into the passenger seat and plops into the driver’s side. The engine struggles to turn over and he winces, but keeps trying. _Come on_ , he whispers to the truck, stroking the dashboard. _You can do it_. After a few more revs, the engine finally turns over and the truck roars grumpily to life. Will winces at the sound the engine is making, but he can look at that later.

The child is completely silent, still not having made a single sound. But that seems . . . normal, somehow? Will is somehow completely sure that the kid has always been this way. There’s something tugging his brain, about the kid, about where the kid is from, about why he’s responsible for him. Why can’t he remember? At least he still knows his way to the elementary school. Wait. Elementary school. Is that even right? How old is this kid, anyways?

“Hey, how old are you?” he asks the kid. “Do you know what grade you’re supposed to be in?”

He tries to split his attention between the kid and the road, looking for a response. The kid eventually holds up 8 fingers. 

“You’re eight?”

The kid nods. 

“Oh. Um. Okay. Third grade, then?” Will asks, trying to remember how old he was during all of the different grades. The kid nods solemnly. Whew. Well, that was one thing taken care of. Mx. Williams was still teaching third grade, and they were completely calm and unflappable. They would know what to do with this silent, pale child with milky eyes. And maybe they could tell him where he’d been, help jog his memory.

He and the child walk up to the school at the same time as Steve Carlsburg (and in his mind he snorts a little, because he can only think it in the same tone of voice as Derek says it, and well, Derek’s always been a little overprotective of his sister.)

“Hey Steve,” Will says.

Steve startles visibly. “Scoutmaster Poindexter! You’re back!”

Will’s brow furrows. “Yeah, uh,” he mumbles. “Mx. Williams still teaches third grade in the same classroom, right?”

“Yep, still there,” he says, staring at Will as if he’s seen a ghost. “Are you here to recruit for Cub Scouts?”

“What? Oh, no. Uh. I’m here to drop off my kid,” he says, trying to understand the way that Steve’s face is wrinkling in deep confusion. Will gestures to the child beside him and Steve’s face shifts into . . . recognition? Fear? What the hell happened?

“Oh. Kid! Sure. Yep. Well, uh, Mx. William’s room is right through the front door and down the hall to the right,” Steve says, looking like he’d rather be anywhere else. “I’ve got to, uh, drop off Janice still, so, uh, see you round I guess.” He hurries away.

Will is dreadfully unsettled, but he heads off down the hallway anyways, pulling the kid along by his hand. At the door of the third grade classroom, Mx. Williams is standing, greeting all the kids by name, letting them pick a hug, high five, or wink for their daily greeting. They’re a large person, very tall and dark skinned with a puff of tightly-curled red hair. When they see Will, they break out in a smile. “Hi Will! Dropping Roger off in person today?” they say, looking down at the kid.

_Roger?_ Will thinks. He looks down at the kid who is smiling and nodding happily. “Yep! Uh, just wanted to say hi, make sure he’s doing okay,” Will says, still trying to figure out what on earth is going on.

“Oh, he’s doing fine, as always. He is such a joy to have in class,” Mx. Williams says. “Quiet and obedient and helpful. Must be all that _scouting influence_ ,” they say, looking for all the world as if they’d love to pinch Dex’s cheeks. 

“Great! Uh. Great. That’s really good to hear, but I’d probably better get going, though,” Will says, trying to extract himself from a situation that was spinning wildly out of his control.

“Oooooo, right! I heard about the new job!” Mx. Williams says. “Wouldn’t want to be late to your first day! Especially not somewhere as fancy as Tourniquet!”

Will smiles with his mouth because that’s what one does during small talk, but he’s screaming internally. He’s waiting to wake up from this (dream? Nightmare? He’s not really sure what this is), but no such rescue seems to be forthcoming. “Yeah, definitely not,” he says. A thought suddenly occurs to him. “What time do I need to pick him up again?” he asks, trying to play it cool. 

“Well, school is out at 3, but if you need some more time because of work, the after school program goes until 5,” Mx Williams says. 

“Right. Uh. Thanks. I’ll— I’ll make sure to find out. I’m not sure exactly when they’re having me work today,” Will says (and he can’t tell if that’s the truth or the lie of the century). “Have a good day!” he says to the kid — Roger — and he tries not to scamper out of there like his tail is on fire. 

He makes it to the truck before he can’t keep his breathing under control any longer and he just starts hyperventilating wildly, gripping the steering wheel like a lifesaver and resting his head on it. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t. He can’t. He’s rocking back and forth, banging his head gently on the top of the steering wheel. _Get a grip, Poindexter, you’re a Scout. A Scout is always prepared_ , he thinks. _For this, though?_ a more treacherous part of his brain asks quietly. _How could anyone be prepared for this?_

He purposely slows his breathing down, forcing his lungs to fill and release slower and slower until he’s breathing at a normal speed, then slower-than-normal. His heart is still pounding away in his chest like a jackrabbit being chased by a hawk. He forces himself to keep breathing slowly until it calms down a little.

He’s feeling shaky, but at least he’s okay to drive now. _What next?_ he asks himself. Well, he should probably figure out when he’s supposed to be at work. At Tourniquet, of all places. What did they even hire him for? Dishwasher? And who is supposed to watch Roger if he’s going to be at work? Derek? He snorts. _He buddy old pal, I have a favor to ask you. I know you have no idea what to do with children, but do you mind watching this kid that I apparently have now while I work until who knows when tonight, doing who knows what at my new job at Tourniquet? Yeah, I thought that would be fine. You can just pretend he’s an intern._ Will shudders. Nope. Definitely not. There was no way he was letting Derek take any kid within 50 feet of the radio station, not with the things that happened to interns there. 

His breathing is speeding up again so he re-sets himself, evens it out. He’s got this. First, the work hours. Get to Tourniquet, see if anyone is there right now, see if he can figure out when he’s supposed to show up. 

Breathing mostly calm, he sits up and turns the key. The truck whines and grumbles and revs but it eventually turns over and roars to life. “That’s my baby,” Dex says to the truck, petting the dashboard. “Now let’s figure out about work.”


	8. Work Work Work

Will’s second week as sous chef at Tourniquet is going well. The restaurant is packed, as always, and Will is in constant motion, chopping, plating, inspecting, checking orders. He’d been so afraid at first that he would fail terribly, since he still doesn’t remember training to be a chef of any kind. But turns out that his hands know what to do, and he’s always been good at keeping track of things and managing people, so. Turns out being in charge of a boy scout troop has some translatable skills after all.

LaShawn, the chef, strolls into the kitchen, back from his break to walk around the front of the house to see how people are doing. “Will! There’s someone up front for you!” he says. 

“What?” Will says, glancing up from where he’s dribbling just a hint more sauce onto one of the plates. 

“Derek’s up front, wants to say hi,” LaShawn says, jerking his thumb out to the front. 

“What??” Will says again, even more confused.

“The Voice of Night Vale wants an interview, go humor him,” LaShawn says again, clearly exasperated. “Go!”

Will drops the sauce ladle and heads out of the kitchen, shaking his head. What on earth did Derek want?

Derek is in the entryway, standing awkwardly, trading nervous glances with the statue carved out of volcanic rock that was the maître d’. When he sees Will, his eyes light up, he stands up straight, and he stops shuffling his feet. He looks, in a word, incredibly relieved. 

Will’s forehead wrinkles in confusions. Derek hasn’t looked this happy to see him since, well, since before he’d found out he was supposed to be the Voice of Night Vale. Back when they were still _friends_. 

“Hey Derek, what’s up?” Will says, trying to act casual. He can’t be casual. His heart is pounding suddenly, and he can feel his spine tensing up. His stomach is wriggling like he just swallowed a live fish or three.

“Will! You have no idea how good it is to see you!” Derek says. “I was so glad to hear that you were back!”

“Yeah,” Will says, as if from very far away. He’s trying to dredge up the energy for small talk, but it feels like it’s happening poorly, and with far too much effort. “It’s nice to _be_ back,” he says, not really feeling it.

“Good, good,” Derek says. “Um, Pretty cool that you got hired here. As sous chef, no less. It’s really . . . chill.”

“Yeah,” Will says. The silence stretches on, unbroken except for the intense stare of the maître d’. 

Derek is fidgeting again. _How did it end up like this?_ Will thinks. _Derek’s finally talking to me and I have nothing to say_. 

“Are you okay?” Will finally asks. He’s out of stuff to say to pass the time, and he’s trying to get to the bottom of why Derek is here, because it clearly isn’t to interview him about the restaurant, and, after all, a Scout is Kind, and Derek looks like he could use a little kindness right now.

Derek starts out of whatever reverie he’s fallen into. “Yeah! Yeah,” he says. “I’m chill. Y’know.”

It may have been years, but Will knows Derek’s bullshit when he hears it. He gives Derek a Look, the one he used to give him right before he called him out on something, and Derek winces before Will even says anything. 

“I know, I know,” Derek says. “You’re right, I’m not fine, but this probably isn’t the right place to talk about it.”

“Okay,” Will says. “So, uh, what’s up then? What’re you . . . here . . . for?” Will says, gesturing vaguely around the lobby with his hand. 

Derek grins sheepishly. “Heard you were working here and couldn’t get ahold of you, mostly just wanted to see how you were doing, I guess. And to say congratulations.”

Will can feel a smile tugging at his face before he can stop it, and the soft fondness welling up in his chest is _definitely_ doing that without his permission. Will gives up and just lets himself bask, momentarily, in his fondness for Derek. “Thanks, man,” he says. “It’s good to see you.”

Derek smiles, looking extremely relieved again. “It’s good to see you, too. Are you . . . how are _you_ doing?”

“I —” Will starts, and then sighs. “You know, probably not a good conversation for here, either. Plus, I have to get back to the kitchen. But, you know, I’m pretty sure my phone number is the same. Or you know where I live. Call me?” Will asks, making a half step back to the kitchen where he knows that LaShawn’s patience with him is probably running out. 

“Oh! Yeah. Um. Sorry. Of course, of course,” Derek says. “I’m really glad I ran into you. Thanks for leaving your post for me.”

“Yeah! It was good to see you too. But I’d definitely better get back,” Will says, starting to turn. “But I’ll see you around though?”

“Definitely, definitely,” Derek says. Then, as Will turns completely around and takes a solid two steps into the lobby, Derek calls after him. “Will!! Wait!”

Will turns around.

“Would you . . . would you maybe come on the show sometime? And teach people how to cook something? I bet the listeners would really love that,” Derek says.

Will smiles for real this time, a smile that can’t help but turn the corners of his lips at how Derek is. “Yeah, of course,” he says. “Just let me know when!”

“Chill!” Derek says, a broad grin splitting his face in two.

“See you!” Will says, turning back to the restaurant again.

“Talk to you later!” Derek calls after him.

Will doesn’t stop smiling the whole night, not even when one of the servers trips and gets tomato sauce all over his nice white chef coat.

Will is trying to catch a late morning nap after dropping Roger off at school when his phone rings. He squints in confusion at it. Derek, maybe? Derek had promised to call him, after all. Hopefully it wasn’t the school.

“ ‘lo?” he answers groggily.

“Dex!!!!! OH MY GOD IT’S REALLY YOU!!!!” someone very, very excited shouts in his ear. He holds the phone away from his ear, half to get away from the loud noise and half to try and squint at the caller ID again. His whole body jolts into a much higher state of awakeness when he realizes who it is and his brain finally catches up to the name he’d been greeted with. “Chris???”

“Dex!!!!” Chris shouts again.

Despite the spurt of adrenaline, he is still nowhere near awake enough to be having this conversation.

“I’m so glad you picked up!!” Chris says. “I swear all I ever get is voicemails, even Derek’s! You have no idea how nice it is to have a back and forth conversation with someone. Voicemails just really aren’t the same.”

“Hey Chris, what’s up?” Will says, still stubbornly trying to blink himself awake. His jaw pops with the size of the yawn he lets out.

“Oh no, did I wake you up?!?” Chris says in his ear.

“No no, it’s totally fine, just a nap,” Will says.

“Awesome. Well, Derek told me yesterday that you were back and since I can’t stop by in person, I wanted to do the next best thing and call you and say hi!”

“Why can’t you stop by in person?” Will asks, confused.

“Haven’t you been listening to Derek’s broadcasts?” Chris asks.

“I mean. Kind of. I catch them when I can. I’ve been kind of busy,” Will says.

“Oh, yeah, totally,” Chris says. “But I guess you probably haven’t heard that I’m not in Night Vale right now.”

“Oh,” Will says, frowning. “Are you . . . home? Are you visiting family or something?”

Chris lets out a strange noise that could have been a laugh and maybe could have been a sob. “No, I, uh. No,” he says, voice strange. “I got trapped in this weird desert otherworld place?”

"What??" Will says, trying harder to wake up. 

"Yeah, um. I was investigating the house that doesn’t exist and then Strexcorp arrested everybody before I could get back out and then I had to build things to help shield everyone from the Smiling God and then. Well. Anyways, I kind of got locked out.."

"Wow, that's . . ." Will trails off, trying to think of something to say. "Sounds like a lot happened while I was gone," he says eventually.

"Yeah," Chris says slowly, letting out a shaky breath that turns into half a laugh. "Yeah, it’s definitely been . . . a lot. It's not so bad, actually. My phone battery never runs out and the wi-fi is always good.”

“Really?” Will says.

“Yeah, no idea how that’s working. That’s actually a thing that I’m working on. There is so much to research here!!” he says, his voice taking on that wispy excitement it got when he’d found something new he really wanted to study. “There’s like, these weird bones here that I can’t figure out, and there’s the weird rumbling, and the way the light stops blinking when the rumbling happens. And my phone healed itself!!!”

“What?” Will says, trying to keep up.

“Yeah, it was totally crazy! My phone got smashed by a rock and then it like . . . just melted back together?”

“Wow, that’s crazy,” Will says.

“Yeah! It’s so weird. Anyways!!! What about you?? How did you get back?”

“I, uh, I don’t really know,” Will says. “I just kind of . . . woke up and I was back? Couldn’t remember where I was or how I’d gotten there. Had a kid and a job and kind of just had to wing it until I figured out what I was doing.”

“Wait, you have a kid??” Chris asks.

“Yeah, uh, I think it’s one of the mute children from the ceremony? I’m not really sure. But his name is Roger and he’s 8 and I guess he’s mine now, so. Good thing being Scoutmaster taught me how to handle kids.”

“Wow, that’s wild.”

“Yeah, for sure,” Will says.

“So what else are you up to?” Chris asks. “Derek said you’re a chef now?”

“Yeah, sous chef. Like, second-in-command chef. Don’t really know how I got that job either, but it turns out I’m really good at it, and I like it, so. That’s good.”

“Yeah, that’s awesome!” Chris says. “Anyways, I’ve got to go, it looks like Doug might have found something.”

“Doug?” 

“Oh! One of the masked army. I’ll have to tell you all about them later. Call me again, okay? You know your schedule better than I do, and I’m always free, so.”

“Do you get texts?” Will asks.

“Yeah! Texts are good too! But I’ve really got to go now okay? Bye!!”

The phone goes dead. 

Dex opens the door to let Old Woman Josie in. “Thank you so much, again,” he says, as she shuffles through the door, followed by some indistinct floating lights that give off a sense of vast and infinite space.

“Nonsense, dear, you don’t need to keep thanking me,” she says. “I can knit just as well here as I can at my house, and Roger is such a dear. Even Erika likes him, and believe me, Erika doesn’t like just anyone!”

“Well I really appreciate it, Josie,” Will says. “I’ll try and bring you back some leftovers, okay?” He grabs his jacket. “Roger, I’m leaving!” he calls into the house. He jumps as he feels a small hand on his left arm. He could have sworn Roger was in the dining room. Regardless, he crouches down. “Hug or fistbump?” he asks. Roger holds up his fist and Will gives him a quick fistbump, making sure to make it explode afterwards, wiggling his fingers and making a small explosion noise. A tiny smile spreads across Roger’s face, and Will grins back in return. “I’ll see you later, buddy, okay?”

Roger nods.

“Be good for Josie for me, and get your homework done, alright?”

Roger rolls his eyes. 

Will shakes his head and smiles, then stands up and briefly ruffles Roger’s hair. “Love you too, bud. I’ll see you later.”

Will’s bouncing down the road towards Tourniquet when his phone rings. He lets his foot off the gas and fumbles for his phone in the passenger seat, trying not to take his eyes off the road.

“Hello?” he says without looking.

“Will?”

“Yep, that’s me,” Will says.

“Hey, uh, it’s Derek.”

“Oh! Hey!” Will says, trying to squish the phone between his ear and get both hands back on the steering wheel and not freak out. “What’s up?”

“You, uh, said to call you?” Derek sounds hesitant, so different from his normal “chill” radio host voice. 

Will doesn’t remember the last time Derek sounded so vulnerable around him. His brows furrow, and he keeps his eye on the deserted road in front of him. “Yeah, totally,” he says. “Is this about me being on your show, or is this just to talk?”

“Oh! You remembered about being on my show!” Derek says.

“Of course,” Will says. “Definitely not a problem. Anything specific you wanted me to make?”

“Uh, I don’t know, just something that would be easy to explain on the radio?” Derek says, hesitant. “I don’t know much about cooking, so, just whatever would be fine, really.”

“Sure, how much time would I have?”

“I, ah, hadn’t really thought about it,” Derek says. 

This whole conversation is so surreal. Derek’s been in confident chill radio host mode since they were teenagers and they’d been allowed to read their destinies from the tablets under city hall. He’s always had his shows planned down to the minute, has known exactly what he wanted out of a segment, has been completely focused on making sure the radio show runs exactly how he wants it. To hear him uncertain and hesitant like this is making Will feel like maybe he returned one dimension to the left.

“Okay, that’s —” Will resists the urge to say “chill” — “cool,” he settles on. “I can make something work. “Anything else you wanted to talk about? I know you said the other night that you wanted to catch up sometime.”

“Yeah, uh, actually, about that,” Derek says. “I, uh, remembered some things while you were gone. And. . . well. A lot of stuff has happened. I thought maybe I could fill you in? If you want. I thought it might be fun.”

“Sure, that sounds nice,” Will says. “When were you thinking? I’m working tonight, and tomorrow night too, but I’m free Monday. Well, if you don’t mind coming over to my house, since I have a kid now.”

“Oh,” Derek says, sounding disappointed. “I had been hoping to see you tonight, actually. When do you get off work?”

“Not until late,” Will says. “Tourniquet doesn’t close until 11, and then I’ll have to help close, so I probably won’t be home until after midnight.” 

“Alright,” Derek says sadly. “That’s chill, I guess. Monday it is?”

“Sure thing. You wanna come meet Roger or would you rather come over after he’s in bed?”

“Uh. Don’t know, actually. I should probably meet him, right? I mean, when your childhood best friend becomes a parent, you get to know their kid, right?”

Will’s heart clenches in his chest at the words “childhood best friend.” Derek hadn’t admitted they were friends in years, ever since he’d started interning at the radio station. Was this what Derek had meant when he said he’d remembered some things?

“I mean, sure, you should probably meet him at some point,” Will says. “But you don’t have to meet him right away if it makes you nervous. Why don’t you just come over around 8:30 or so, he’ll be in bed by then.”

“Chill,” Derek says, sounding as if he’s dodged a bullet. “I’ll see you Monday, then.”

“Great! I’ll look forward to it,” Will says, pulling into the employee parking lot/loading zone behind Tourniquet and hanging up the phone.

He frowns, thinking to himself. He should probably let Chris know he & Derek are meeting up. Make sure to keep everything above board and all. 

**Will:** Derek just called me, says he wants to “catch up”

His phone pings as he’s changing into his work uniform.

**Chowder:** Yeah he’s really excited you’re back!  
**Chowder:** While you were gone he remembered that you guys were really good friends as kids  
**Chowder:** He even used his Subversive Radio Host badge skills!  
**Chowder:** says that was one you guys got together  
**Chowder:** I’m glad he finally worked up the nerve to call you  
**Chowder:** he’s been really nervous about it for some reason

The corner of Will’s mouth twitched in a wry smile. Of course.

**Will:** Well I guess he finally worked up the nerve  
**Will:** He’s coming over Monday night after Roger’s asleep  
**Chowder:** !!!!!!  
**Chowder:** Let me know how he is  


Will's brow furrows, trying to figure out what Chris means.

**Will:** Why?  
**Will:** Don’t you talk to him more than me?  
**Chowder:** idk  
**Chowder:** he keeps telling me he's fine but I don't think he is and idk what’s up

Hmm. That would explain how strange Derek had sounded on the phone.

**Will:** sounds good  
**Will:** I gotta clock in for work but I'll keep an eye out   
**Chowder:** thank you!!  
**Chowder:** have fun at work  
**Will:** 🙃


	9. Derek

On Monday, Will is full of a restlessness he can’t shake. He gets Roger off to school, he goes grocery shopping. He’s way too wound up to take a nap, so he doesn’t even try, even though he could probably use one. He does laundry, or tries to, but he has to stop halfway through and rig up a clothesline to dry everything on because the dryer isn’t working, so he putters around for a while trying to figure out what’s wrong with it. He picks Roger up from school and helps him with his homework, and they watch some more sign language videos together. Roger doesn’t seem too distressed with their current level of communication, but Will wants to make sure that they at least have the ability to communicate more if they need to. Then it’s dinner, and reading, and toothbrushes and pajamas and bed. And finally there’s nothing left between Will and Derek’s imminent arrival.

Will sits on the couch, bouncing his knee, debating whether or not to turn on the TV. Derek’s supposed to show up in fifteen minutes and Will can’t tell if having the TV on would help distract him or only make the anxiety worse. So he sits, indecisive, on the couch, his leg bouncing fast enough to churn butter. This will be the first time he’s spoken to Derek in years that’s not about scouts or radio business of some kind. He’s not sure, but it might be the first time they’ve hung out voluntarily since they were 15. What do they say? What do they talk about? Chris is the only thing they have in common these days and that doesn’t seem like a good place to linger. Of course, Derek probably doesn’t know about him and Chris. It’s probably better to keep it that way, since that’s all in the past and Derek and Chris are together now. 

Will sees Derek’s car pull up in front of the house and snaps himself out of his thoughts. He forces himself to wait on the couch as Derek makes his way up the front steps and eventually knocks on the door. Will waits a few seconds, tries to make it seem like he wasn’t just ready to jump up and open the door the second he heard the knock.

“Hi Derek,” he says when he opens the door. His heart squeezes sharply in his chest but he tries to ignore it.

“Hi Will,” Derek says, a smile breaking out across his face.

“Come on in,” Will says, gesturing to the couch.

They settle into the living room, Will in the corner of the couch and Derek in the oversized loveseat/chair. Will puts his feet up on the coffee table. Out of the corner of his eye, the way Derek is sitting makes him look almost as nervous as Will feels, which weirdly enough helps him relax a little bit.

Will lets out a big sigh and tries to sink himself further into the couch. Derek tries to settle back as well, but he’s still sitting on the edge of the couch with his hands clasped between his knees. 

“So? How are you?” Will asks. “It’s been a while.”

“Yeah,” Derek says.

Will waits, but apparently Derek is not going to say anything else. “So, you uh, said on the phone that you . . . remembered some things?” Will asks eventually.

“Yeah, I—” Derek breaks off again. “Apparently I forgot that . . . we used to be friends?” he says, voice lifting the statement into a question, and he looks at Will as if for confirmation.

“We did, yeah,” Will says. “What part did you remember? What did you forget?” 

Derek laughs nervously. “Well I don’t know if I’ve remembered everything, or if there’s anything else I should know that I don’t, but . . . we were both in Scouts together, right?”

“Yep,” Will says. 

“I remembered getting the Subversive Radio Host badge together,” Derek says. “I didn’t remember before, but I’m glad I did. It really came in handy.”

“A scout is always prepared,” Will says wryly. “That’s what it’s for.”

“Yeah. . .” Derek trails off and stares into space for several seconds as if thinking of something else.

“What did you use it for, anyways?” Will asks eventually.

Derek’s eyes refocus, snapping back to Will. “They, uh. Strexcorp. Tried to cut me out of my own show. I, uh, was trying to report on one of the Strexcorp helicopters getting shot down by Tamika Flynn but they didn’t like that and turned off my mic so I climbed up to the roof and hijacked the tower with my phone.” Derek winces at Will’s blank stare. “It’s a long story.”

“Well, that’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?” Will says. “Want something to drink? LaShawn let me take home a half-drunk bottle of wine that apparently “loses all its value” when opened or something. I was going to use it for some cooking experiments, but . . .” he shrugs.

“Yeah! Chill. That’s . . . that was nice of him.”

“Yeah, let me go get it. I think I still have some dark chocolate cake in the fridge too; I know it’s not your thing but it’ll probably go good with the wine.”

Will grabs the cake, the wine, some glasses, and a couple plates and manages to balance it in his arms long enough to dump it all carefully on the coffee table. He gestures for Derek to cut himself a piece and sets about pouring the wine. 

“So . . . Strexcorp?” he asks.

“Yeah, uh, that was a whole thing,” Derek says, and starts telling the story of it. The helicopters and Tamkia Flynn and the failed parade and the “company picnic” and the doors and the Erikas and the Smiling God. He’s slipping into Radio Host just a little, but not necessarily in a bad way. Just enough to exude that feeling of calm that comes when the Voice of Night Vale speaks. Will basks in the warm glow of Derek’s voice and the fuzziness he’s getting from a couple glasses of wine, just letting it all wash through him and over him.

“And so yeah, that’s where we’re at now,” Derek says. “Chris is still stuck in the desert otherworld, and we’re still trying to get rid of the ‘renovations’ Strexcorp made - luckily the 1:1 model of the Arby’s was a working model, so that wasn’t too hard to get up and running again.”

“Well that’s good,” Will says.

“And I’m just keeping on with the radio show, I suppose,” Derek says. “What about you? What’s going on with you since you got back?”

Will sighed heavily. “Well . . .” he said, trailing off. “I basically just woke up one day and had a kid and a job and a house and stuff. Didn’t even remember what had happened at first. Thought maybe I’d gotten reeducated or something.”

“Pfffft, you? You’re a scout! You’d never get reeducated!”

“I mean, you know how it is. I try to be good, but there’s always _something_.”

Derek tilts his head and raises his eyebrows as he takes a sip as if to say “true”.

“So when I woke up and literally could not remember anything about where I was, why I had a kid, where I was working, anything, it was the first thing I thought of.”

“I mean, I probably would have thought the same thing,” Derek says, and takes another sip.

They sit in silence for a while, staring off into their respective distances and swirling the wine. Chris’s comment floats up from the back of Will’s mind, and he looks over at Derek.

“So how are you _really_?” Will asks.

“What?” Derek says, clearly startled out of some sort of revelry. His eyes jump up to Will’s face, confused.

“I mean, that Strexcorp stuff sounds pretty heavy just by itself. And now Chris, your boyfriend, is stuck in the desert otherworld and neither of you are sure if he can get back or not.”

Derek sets his glass on the coffee table, scrubs his face in his hands, and sighs. There’s silence for a few seconds, and Derek stares alternatively at his knees and out the front window. “It’s . . . been a lot,” he says finally. 

Will can’t think of anything to say, so he lets the silence hang. Maybe it will coax a little more out of Derek.

“I . . .” Derek starts up again. “At first, everything was going so well. Chris finally agreed to go on a date with me. We started dating.” Derek smiles fondly in a way that twinges something in Will’s heart. “It was so good. It’s still so good. I just. . .” Derek trails off. He puts his face in his hands. 

“You just miss him?” Will asks softly.

“Yeah,” Derek says. “I mean, it’s not like we were clingy or anything, you know? He has his science and I have the radio show and sometimes we’d go a week or two without seeing each other. So I thought it would be fine. We still talk on the phone. Hell, sometimes he still gets so distracted by science that we don’t even do _that_ for a while.” Derek looks both pained and utterly fond, as if Chris’s occasional inability to focus on anything but Science is both the cutest thing he’s ever seen and also a source of irritation.

“I mean, he gets like that sometimes,” Will says out of solidarity, and takes a big swig of his wine.

“Yeah . . .” Derek sighs. 

More quiet silence.

“Have you told him? That you miss him and stuff?” Will says eventually.

“Hmm?” Derek says, looking up.

“I mean, you said you guys wouldn’t even always see each other that often, even when you were dating. Maybe he doesn’t realize how serious you are about him.”

Derek rolls his eyes. “I’m not _serious_ about him. It’s not like we’re going to get _married_ or anything,” he says, but Will can see the denial screaming from Derek’s posture. Funny how much the years have changed them both, but some things remain absolutely the same. Will’s heart twinges again.

“Okay, well. Still. Maybe he misses you too. It couldn’t hurt to tell him, right?”

Derek slumps into the chair petulantly, like a scout not wanting to admit the scoutmaster is right. “Yeah, probably. Whatever,” he mumbles into his glass.

It’s time for a topic change, for both their sakes.

“So, you said you remembered us getting the Subversive Radio Host badge,” Will says. 

“Yep,” Derek confirms.

“Do you remember when we were trying to get the antenna up high enough to get the signal and we tried to break into the invisible clock tower before it teleported again?”

“What??” Derek says. “No _way_ we did that! How would you even —”

“I know!” Will says, grateful as the weird, lingering silence dissipates. “We totally did though. That was before Invisibility badges were a thing, though, so we were trying to use natural divination to find it instead.” He lets the story roll out of him, and, gratifyingly, Derek seems to start remembering bits and pieces of it part way through.

They spend the rest of the night swapping bits of childhood stories and trying to jog Derek’s memory (not of that night, though, never of that night out under the stars). Derek collapses on the couch in a fit of giggles over the time they’d inadvertently disturbed a nest of ground squirrels and tried to catch one to stick in the scoutmaster’s tent. Will couldn’t help but feel pleased that he was the one making Derek laugh like this, that he’d managed to cheer him up, that they were talking and laughing just like old times.

Well, not quite like old times. Derek is Chris’s now, after all. (And Chris is Derek’s.) And the text he gets in the morning from Chris, which just says “thanks, idk what you did but you really cheered him up” only drives that particular knife just a little bit deeper.


	10. On the Radio

Will hesitates at the door of the radio station. He’s never actually been in here before, and it feels a bit weird to be intruding on Derek’s domain. Gathering his courage, he pushes the door open cautiously. The door opens into a hallway that runs horizontally, right to left. To the right, down the hallways a couple of feet, is a door with a big red “ON AIR” sign lit up. Derek had said to come right in, but is he really supposed to come right in? He texts Derek.

**Will:** I’m here  
**Derek:** Great, come on in!  
**Derek:** We’re just playing a pre-recorded word from our sponsors  
**Derek:** So they won’t hear you

Will steps into the booth, shutting the door carefully behind him. Derek waves him over to where he’s sitting, pointing to the extra microphone near him. Will walks over and sets down his bag of stuff carefully.

“And now, listeners, I’ve got a special treat for you guys. Remember how Will Poindexter, my childhood best friend, is working as a sous chef at Tourniquet now? Well, he’s agreed to come on the show and do a cooking segment for us! Say hi, Will!”

Will clears his throat, feeling extremely awkward. “Hi,” he says, leaning over to the microphone, which is uncomfortably close into Derek’s space. He pulls out the little card he’d made to remind himself what he was going to say. “Tiramisu is a popular dessert at many restaurants – especially at Tourniquet – but few people make it at home. Once they hear how easy it is, and how delicious Chef Mason's recipe is, they'll want to make it all the time. They'll want to never stop making tiramisu,” Will says, making sure to emphasize it. It’s a pretty easy recipe, but he does feel like he should be conscientious about making sure everyone knows the warnings before attempting it.

“Oooh, sounds good!” Derek says. Will can tell he hasn’t quite made the warning plain enough.

“Never stop making it!!” he says again, trying to make sure Derek (and his listeners) understand. It had taken him several days and some help from LaShawn before he’d finally managed to stop making tiramisu the first time he’d started.

Derek clears his throat. “Okay! Well. Noted. So...what all do you have here? What will our listeners need?”

Will starts taking things out of his bag while listing off ingredients. “Well, everyone should have most of these ingredients already at home. A carafe of pre-made coffee, six eggs – go ahead and separate them into whites and yolks, but make sure to remove organs, teeth, and other debris – uh, salt, two tablespoons of cocoa, 1/3 cup of sugar, two cups of mascarpone, which is a kind of fish, a package of gluten-free ladyfinger cookies, two ounces of dark rum, and – Chef Mason's special culinary touch – one and a half cups of ground nutmeg.”

“Ohhh! I do love nutmeg. Oh...it's been deveined, right?” Derek asks.

“Yep. Most supermarkets should have deveined nutmeg — you can definitely get some at the Ralphs — but in case you're grinding it fresh at home, make sure to remove the thick vein running up the nutmeg spine after you kill and clean it.” Hopefully that’s clear enough. Will starts setting out his mixing bowls and whisks. “To start, just whisk the egg yolks and 1/4 cup of the sugar in one bowl, and then work in the marscapone. Then, in a separate bowl, you'll want to mix the egg whites, a pinch of salt, and the remaining sugar until firm, like this,” Will says, showing Derek the texture of the mixture. Since this is radio, not TV, he can’t exactly show the listeners, but hopefully they’ll understand.

“That doesn’t look too hard,” Derek says, looking first into the bowl, then up at Will, then back down into the bowl again.

“It’s really not! Mix that into the first bowl, then add the coffee and the rum. Then, dip the cookies into the mixture, lay them into a baking dish, cover with your ground nutmeg, and . . .” He trails off as Derek starts looking around frantically with increasing agitation.

“Oh, uh, Will? I feel so silly saying this, but...there's no oven here. Ugh. I brought a professional chef to do a recipe on my show, and I don't even have a working kitchen!” Derek is looking extremely distressed, like he’s about to start panicking.

Will puts a hand on Derek’s arm to try and break him out of whatever spiral he’s about to work himself into. “Don’t worry, Derek, it’s fine. We wouldn't have time to completely cook a tiramisu on the air! It takes hours of slow baking in an earth oven. I already brought a finished tiramisu,” he says, pulling the last container out of the bag he brought.

Derek’s face lights up. “Wow! Chill, dude. This looks delicious! I can't wait to share it with the staff.”

“Be careful, it is quite poisonous.”

“Oh, yes, of course. Well, thanks for coming on the show, and congratulations on the huge success of Tourniquet. I hope to get a reservation there soon...will you come on the show again with more tasty recipes? Maybe we can make this a regular cooking feature.”

“Yeah!” Will says.

“Well...it's been great catching up, we'll see you again soon, Will! And now . . . traffic.” Derek clicks some buttons and slides some switches on the switchboard, then takes off one ear of his headphones and swivels his chair towards Will.

“That was great, bro, you totally killed it!” he says.

A swell of warmth blossoms in Will’s heart and he tries not to show how pleased he is by Derek’s praise. “Thanks, it was pretty fun, actually,” he says. “Just remember not to eat the tiramisu I brought. Probably shouldn’t let the staff eat it either.”

“Oh! I know what we could do with it,” Derek says. “I bet Khoshek will love it.”

“You still have Khoshek?” Will asks.

“Oh yeah, he had kittens too! They’re super cute. Here, let me show you!” Derek says, and moves to get up out of the chair.

“Oh I wouldn’t want to bother you,” Will says.

“Don’t be ridiculous, dude, Khoshek will love you. And the kittens are mad cute.”

“Alright, sure, as long as we have time,” Will says. He picks up the tiramisu and follows Derek down the hallway to the men’s bathroom. Inside is a floating anti-glowing black void shape that looks vaguely like a cat. Around it are several smaller void-shapes, tumbling and pouncing around in the air. 

“Hey guys, brought you a treat!!” Derek says. “And a friend! Look, this is Will and he’s like, totally great, so be chill you guys, okay?”

One of the tiny voids makes an inquisitive “prrrpp?” noise and comes bounding through the air towards Will. He holds up the tiramisu in front of him, half in offering, half in defense. The void’s ears twist back in curiosity, and it takes a small nibble from one of the sides. Apparently finding the offering to its liking, it takes another bite and starts chowing down, pausing occasionally to lick its teeth. Pretty soon, the entire gaggle of voids have pounced over and are tearing at the tiramisu, making contented little “miu” noises and smacking their tongues. When the cake is about two thirds of the way devoured, suddenly the largest void, still sitting by the mirror, makes a low and distant “wwoww” sound full of unearthly harmonics that bounce through the bathroom. The tiny voids all sit up and turn their heads expectantly. Khoshek walks delicately through the air, sniffs the cake, and with a quick bite, swallows all the rest of it and the plate as well. He burps, delicately, and begins to purr, a rumble that vibrates Will right down to his bones. 

“Oh he likes you!!” Derek says excitedly. “Here, I bet he’ll let you pet him now,” he says, and reaches up to scratch Khoshek’s chin.

“Uh, I’m good, thanks,” says Will. “Don’t you have to get back to the sound booth?”

“Oh! Yeah, should probably get back,” Derek says, looking at his watch. His watch that looks suspiciously like what Will remember’s Chris’s watch looking like.

“Thanks for letting me meet Khoshek,” Will says. “I’m glad he liked the tiramisu.”

“Of course! I’ll see you soon, right?” Derek says.

“Yeah, for sure,” Will says. “You, uh. I mean. I’m always free on Monday nights if you want to make that a thing.” He facepalms internally. Could that have come out any worse?

“Oh! Yeah! For sure, bro, I’d love that. This coming Monday still good?”

“Yep!”

“Sweet, dude, see you then!” Derek says, and dashes back into the booth.


	11. Unfortunate Revelations

It’s Monday, and Derek is over again, as he has been for the last few Mondays. Will doesn’t have any wine this time, but he does have some leftover rum and some really, really great bread pudding that he may or may not have been experimenting with this afternoon. LaShawn’s really given him the go-ahead to experiment with new dishes for the restaurant, and it’s actually been pretty fun. Plus it gives him a great excuse to have food laying around when Derek comes over.

They’ve been talking and laughing over the antics of Khoshek’s kittens, and Will’s scouts, and reminiscing over old times, and it’s good. They’re several fingers into the rum and halfway into the pan of bread pudding. “Want some milk to wash it down?” Will asks, realizing he’s feeling pretty thirsty.

“Sure,” Derek says, and Will heads off to the kitchen to scrounge up some glasses. When he returns, Derek is slouched back in the oversized chair, smiling at something on his phone.

“Chris?” Will asks.

“Yeah,” Derek says, putting his phone away. 

“How’s he doing?”

“Oh, you know,” Derek says. “I mean, you probably talk to him as much as I do.”

Will winces internally. “Sorry,” he mumbles, handing over a glass of milk. Derek takes a slurp and then frowns into his glass.

“Wait, why’re you sorry for talking to Chris? You guys are friends, aren’t you?”

Will swallows. “Friends. Yep. Friends.” The guilt he’s always pushing down at any given moment comes roaring into his gut. He should probably be honest with Derek. “Chris and I, uh. We. . . . . kissed. Before the Eternal Scout ceremony. Just so you know.” Derek frowns, his face wrinkling in thought, and Will winces. “M sorry,” he mumbles again.

“Why’re you apologizing?” Derek asks, sounding genuinely confused. “Chris and I weren’t even dating then. He’d never even returned any of my calls. We’d only talked about Science. Radio stuff.”

“I know,” Dex says. “But you’re dating now. I won’t talk to him as much if you don’t want me to. If it makes you worried.”

Derek’s face is still all scrunched up like it gets when he’s trying really hard to understand something. “But you’re his friend,” he says. “He’s like, pretty sad, dude. I mean, he’s doing science and stuff and he made some masked army friends but like, he really misses Night Vale. He really likes talking to you. Why would I not want you to talk to him?”

“Because he’s your boyfriend,” Will says, more insistent, trying to figure out how to get the point he’s trying to make through his alcohol-fogged brain. “And I like him. Liked him!” he says, scrambling to try and cover up his slip. _Oh shit oh shit oh shit oh shit_ , his brain is yelling. He looks up and Derek is staring at him. They stare at each other in horrified silence for a moment and then Will sets his glass down on the coffee table and buries his head in his hands. His heart is skittering like a rabbit back into a hole, and his brain is racing to come up with something to say, but all he can hear is the pounding of his heart in his chest. He collapses into himself further, folding his arms on his knees and hiding his face as well. His throat feels like acid and his stomach like lead.

A hand falls on his shoulder. He resists the urge to look up, to look Derek in the face. They were finally becoming friends again and now he’s just completely fucked it all up.

“Will,” Derek says. 

Will does not move.

“Will,” Derek says again, more insistently. He shakes Will’s shoulder a little, roughly, in the way of someone who’s several drinks in and is misjudging their strength. “Hey.” 

Will continues to hide. Maybe he can just fall asleep like this. Maybe he can just pretend he passed out (even though they haven’t drunk nearly enough for that to be a valid excuse.) 

"Will. I'm not mad at you. It's chill. I promise."

Will looks up at that, ready to be furious. Usually a "chill" from Derek means that he's putting on his mask, that he's trying to play something important off as fine when it isn't. Will is about to tell Derek off for pulling that shit with him again, to just be honest for once, but as he looks up and looks into Derek's face, the rebuke dies on his lips. Derek is still holding his shoulder, and he looks concerned and friendly and hopeful and more open than Will has seen him in years, since almost ever. It's such a foreign expression that Will is baffled by it, staring at Derek in shock. "Why? … ?" he manages to get out after a while.

"Why wouldn't it be fine?" Derek asks gently. 

Will props his elbows on his knees and his forehead in his hands and stares at the floor. 

"I mean, it's not like your huge crush on me got in the way of us being friends, right?"

Will looks up in horror again, gripped by the debilitating feeling of all his insides abruptly trying to curl up in a ball and disappear. He can feel a blush just roaring up the back of his neck and into his face. He can only hope that he’s already red enough from the alcohol that Derek doesn't know. "How do you know that," he hisses.

Derek looks confused. "I told you I remembered stuff about when we were kids, right? Finally realized what you meant when you said we could have had something?" Derek looks at Will again and Will can see the light dawning in his eyes and he really, really, cannot take this. He slides all the way to the edge of the couch cushion and lets his head fall on the coffee table with a crack. "Ohhhhhhhhhhhh," Derek says, unnecessarily. "You meant now, didn't you? You still have a crush on me? _And_ Chris?"

"Please, please, please stop talking," Will mumbles from the hard comfort of the coffee table. His ears are burning hotter than the time he forgot to put sunscreen on them before a ten mile hike.

Derek removes his hand from Will's shoulder. Will would like nothing more than to just turn into a small desert animal and disappear under the couch, but that is apparently not an option available to him. Will is expecting Derek to mock him, or stand up and leave, or something, but there is no movement and almost no sound except for Derek's breath.

"M sorry," Will mumbles eventually, hoping that maybe if he moves the conversation along, he can get himself out of this vice grip of anxiety. "I'll leave you guys alone."

"What?" Derek asks, sounding confused and a little upset. "No, why would we want that? You're our friend, we don't want you to leave us alone."

Will's insides gave another twist. “M not a very good friend though.”

“No, Will, c'mmere,” Derek says, trying to pull Will over towards him.

Will jerks out of his grip and scrambles back. "No, what are you doing? You're still dating Chris!" 

Derek stands up, confused. "I'm just trying to give you a hug, dude, you really look like you need it."

Will still feels wild, like he needs to run, to bolt, to dive for the nearest exit before he ruins anything between his two best friends. 

Derek makes a "come here" gesture with his hands and opens his arms out for the hug. "Just a hug, dude, I promise. Can't a friend give his friend a hug when he needs it?"

Will steps hesitantly into Derek's arms and is embraced in a tight, but gentle hug. Derek rubs his back soothingly, like he's an animal in need of calming. Maybe he is. He hasn't felt this ready to shake out of his skin since the Eternal Scout ceremony. He tries to focus on slowing his breathing and not on panicking over the fact that Derek is hugging him, or what that means for Derek and Chris.

"It's okay," Derek says. "It's okay. Don't run away. That would make us sad. You're fine. I'm not mad. I promise."

"What about Chris?" Will says, trying to pull back to look into Derek's face. Derek tightens his grip and pulls Will closer.

"He's not mad either."

"How—? How does he know? I only just told you!"

"He guessed. He figured it for a while. He's really smart, you know. He's a scientist."

They stood there for a few more seconds, then broke apart and stood awkwardly for a few seconds before collapsing back into their respective couches.

Something occurred to Will. "Wait wait wait. So you knew this whole time?? Is that why you weren't surprised?"

"I mean, not this whole time, but yeah. Suspected, at least."

"So what, you and Chris have been talking about me this whole time? What, poor pathetic Will who's in love with both of us?" Will didn't think that he could feel any worse, but he was legitimately about to throw up now. Everything was just too much. The blush had turned into a roar of blood in his ears. 

Derek was saying something, some sort of “no no no,” but Will couldn't process it. 

"Derek," he said, trying to get his attention. "Derek." More forcefully. "Derek!" He half shouted. Derek finally stopped talking. "I think you need to leave." He stood up.

Derek stood up as well. "Will, please—"

Will cut him off. He suddenly felt extremely exhausted, the sharp tension draining out of him, leaving him feeling hollow and shaky. "I can't deal with this right now. I'm sorry. Maybe we can talk about it later, but not tonight." Derek looked as if he was going to protest, so Will barrelled on. "Just not now, okay? I'm too tired and too drunk and I really can't right now, so please just go."

"Okay," Derek says, sounding soft and a little sad. "I'm really sorry and I promise it's not like that." When Will doesn't respond, he picks up his messenger bag and heads towards the door. He looks back once, sadly, before shutting the door behind him on the way out.

Will collapses back on the couch, completely drained. He has the presence of mind to turn off his phone in case he gets any panicked phone calls from Chris that he’s in no shape to deal with. He throws his phone somewhere on the other couch and closes his eyes.


	12. Dramatic Rescue

Will wakes up to Roger nudging his shoulder. Roger tilts his head, looks at him for a moment, and then signs [dad sleep couch why?]. 

Will rubs his eyes and groans. His head is throbbing. “Hey bud,” he croaks. Ugh, his eyes feel like he’s been staring into a sandstorm. “School time?”

Roger nods.

“You’ve got everything?”

Roger holds up his backpack and points to the shoes on his feet.

“Even a lunch?” 

Roger nods again.

“Great. Uh. Lemme get my shoes on and we can go,” he says, looking at his watch. Yep, definitely time for school.

[sleep couch why?] Roger signs again, more emphatically.

“Uh, well, Derek came over last night and I guess he was too tired when he left to make it to the bedroom,” Will says, wincing at the memory of last night. _Council damn it,_ he thinks. He grabs his phone from the couch, thinks about turning it on, and shoves it in his pocket instead. He still doesn’t want to deal with whatever happened last night. “C’mon bud, let’s get you to school.”

Will doesn’t turn his phone on before he goes to work. He knows he’s being the opposite of brave (and a scout is supposed to be brave), but he can’t face this. Not yet. He isn’t sure he really thinks Chris and Derek have been laughing at him behind his back the whole time (although just the thought of that makes his insides twinge), but— 

Well. He should probably apologize. To Derek, for sure, for kicking him out so rudely last night. He still can’t shake the feeling that he’s a terrible friend and the best thing he can do would be to quietly drop out of Chris and Derek’s lives, but that really isn’t a solution that will work. Theoretically he could just run off into the desert and camp for a while, but he has a job now. Roger. The scouts. He’s not actually going to be leaving Night Vale any time soon. Derek, The Voice of Night Vale, is certainly not going anywhere, and Chris is trying to get _back_ to Night Vale because he loves it so much. So they are probably all stuck in Night Vale together for the foreseeable future. _Ugh_.

All day, Will’s hands chop and garnish and plate food while his mind churns endless circles. The noise and the busy-ness of the kitchen certainly doesn’t do anything to help his racing thoughts. Luckily he’s good enough at his job now that he can do most of it on autopilot.

After his shift, he climbs into his truck and starts pulling out into the desert. As he drives down the road back to his house, almost on a whim he turns off onto Oak Trail instead. Roger will be fine with Josie and the Erikas. Josie was probably already asleep, snoring on the guest bed or in the overstuffed armchair he’d picked up for her. It wouldn’t matter if he got home now or in an hour or two.

The tires crunch over the sand and gravel. Eventually, he pulls to a stop. It's not like there is going to be a "perfect spot" for this. He clicks off the engine, reaches under the seat for the spare blankets he keeps under there, shoves open the door, and slides to the ground with a soft crunch. The slam of the door as he closes it echoes out into the night. He crawls up into the truck bed, spreading one blanket out to lie on and using another one all folded up as a pillow. He stares up at the familiar constellations and tries to let their dark and distant shimmer calm the ache in his heart. He is reminded of all the nights spent camping as scouts with Derek at his side and his treacherous heart twinges again.

He sighs and pulls out his phone. It's time. He turns it on, holds it facedown on his chest and stares at the stars again for the seconds it takes to boot up. At some point it starts vibrating like crazy, so he types in his PIN and winces at the number of missed messages and calls.

There’s apologies from Derek. Will skims these and winces. From Chris, there are apologies, then queries of if he’s okay, then increasingly desperate, almost angry (well, angry for Chris) requests to talk, to call back, interspersed with various phone messages. Will pushes “play” on the latest messages and winces at the stab to the heart that is the sadness and resignation in Chris’s voice.

“Dex . . . you obviously don’t want to talk to me right now. I really hope this is just you taking some space to think, and not you disappearing for good. You have every right to, I guess. Just . . . I hope you know how much you mean to me. To me and Derek both. It’s . . . it’s been a rough few months, being stuck out here in the desert otherworld. You have no idea how happy I was to hear that you were back, and how much you’ve helped me while I’ve tried to figure out how to get back to Night Vale. You’re my best friend, and you’ve never been and will never be a joke to me. . . . You’re really important to me. I hope you’re okay. Call me back if you can, okay?”

The voicemail ended with a little hitch in Chris’s voice, as if he was maybe trying to swallow down a sob. Will’s own throat is tight. He can feel his heart pounding like a bass drum in a high school drumline. He scrolls up to click on previous voicemails but can’t quite bring himself to do it. He lays with his phone on his chest and stares at the stars again. What is he even going to say? He doesn’t actually want to disappear from Chris and Derek’s life, if he’s honest. But he has no idea how to go on existing as their friend now that his secret is out, is spread out all over for everyone to see. He’s not sure he can keep existing as the “best friend”, the perpetual third wheel, now that everyone has acknowledged the elephant in the room. How would that even work, anyways? Would everyone just go back to pretending like they didn’t know? The thought of trying to do that makes Will’s chest feel like heartburn.

At the very least he should probably call Chris back and let him know that he’s okay. He’ll leave a voicemail that Chris can find in the morning. He’ll turn his phone back off and go home and go to bed.

He taps on Chris’s contact and clicks “call.” The dial tone rings once, twice, three times — 

“Hello?” Chris asks, his voice foggy with sleep.

“Oh, crap, I meant to get your voicemail,” Dex says instinctively. “I’m really sorry to wake you up.”

“Dex?” Chris says, sounding desperate and joyful.

“Yeah, uh, like I said, I’m really sorry. I just got out of work and finally turned my phone on and was going through your messages and I was just going to leave a voicemail for you to listen to later and I didn’t mean to wake you up.”

“So you listened to all my messages then?”

“Well, not all of them,” Will admits. “Just the last one.”

“Okay,” Chris says. “That one’s the most important one anyways.”

Will doesn’t really know what to say. He hadn’t planned to get this far, hadn’t planned to be actually talking to Chris. He’s not sure he’s ready. He’s not sure he has anything to say.

“Dex? You still there?” Chris asks.

“Yeah. Yeah. Just. Like I said. I meant to get your voicemail. I, uh, don’t really know what to say now that I’m actually talking to you.”

“. . . maybe you could start with what you were going to say in the voicemail?” Chris says, hesitantly.

Will clears his throat and starts, haltingly. “Yeah. Sure. Okay. Um. So. Uh, hey Chris, just wanted to let you know that I’m alright. I turned off my phone after Derek left last night and I’m sorry, I know you’re probably both worried about me, but it’s been kind of a lot to process all at once. I still don’t know how to feel about it all. I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to lose you guys as friends but I don’t know if I can just go on like it was before. So. I won’t turn my phone off again, but I might not respond to too many messages for a while. Hope you understand.” He trails off as he gets to the end of what he’d wanted to say in the voicemail.

“Thanks,” Chris says. “For letting me know you’re alright. I just. I knew you were probably fine but I couldn’t help but remember the last time you disappeared. I probably shouldn’t have left you so many messages but. I was worried.”

“Oh, sweet city council, I’m so sorry,” Will says, smacking his forehead. Of course Chris would be upset at him disappearing. He should have thought of that. He should have remembered. He’s such a terrible friend.

“No, don’t worry about it,” Chris says, sounding relieved. “I’m just really glad you’re okay. Of course you can take all the time you need. You . . . you know I’ll miss you, but I’d understand if . . .”

“Chris is still talking, but something has caught Will’s attention from the corner of his eye. He turns his head towards it and there’s a blinking light, there on a mountain that should not exist. 

“Chris. Chris. Chris!” Will says, cutting off whatever Chris is saying. “You said you’re in a desert otherworld, right?”

“Yes . . . ?” 

“And it has a blinking light on a mountain?”

“Yes???” Chris says, sounding extremely confused.

“And there’s a masked army?”

“Uh huh. . .”

“I can see a blinking light.”

“What?”

“I can see a blinking light. On a mountain.” Will says.

Chris says nothinging, obviously still confused.

“Do you remember that day I came over to check on you because there was a blinking light on a mountain and a masked army and stuff? And you said it was a mirage, but the masked army ended up marching all the way to Night Vale?”

“Yes!!” Chris says, and it sounds like maybe the realization is dawning on him too.

“Where are you right now in relation to the mountain?”

“I’m pretty close to it, actually - I was going to see what the blinking light was.”

“I bet you could walk out, just like the masked army did!”

“But . . . the mirage didn’t last very long last time,” Chris said. “Only a couple hours. I don’t know if I can walk all the way to Night Vale before it fades.”

“I’ve got my truck,” Will says, sitting bolt upright. He scrapes the blankets out of the truck bed, jumps out, slams open the door, and scrambles back into the cab. “I can drive to you. I’m going to hang up and call you back in a bit.”

“Okay!!” Chris says before Will hits the “end” button. He starts up the truck, gets it turned around and is about to dash off when he realizes that he should make sure he can get back. He sets up a quick campfire with some scrub brush and the firewood in the back of his truck. When the fire’s caught properly and ringed with stones, he hops in his truck and sets off as fast as he can towards the mountain and the blinking light. He swipes through his phone until he finds the contact he’s looking for and presses “call”. 

“‘Sup?” Derek says, plainly groggy, on the other end of the phone.

“Derek, I think I can get Chris home!” Will almost yells. 

“Wait, what??” Derek says.

“I think I can get Chris home!” Will says again. “I see the blinking light on the mountain! Where the masked army came from that one time! I’m pretty sure we’re connected to the desert otherworld right now!”

“What???” Derek says, and there’s muffled thumps and the sound of fabric rustling. “Wait, where are you??”

“Well I was coming home from work when I decided to pull off into the desert to think, so I turned off onto Oak Trail and turned off into the desert about five minutes along the road. But I’m on my way towards the mountain to get Chris right now. I actually need you to help me.”

“Yeah! Absolutely! What do you need?”

“I built a fire from where I left so that I’d have something to guide me back, but I’m worried it’s going to die out before I get back. Can you bring a bunch of firewood and keep it burning while I’m going? If you don’t have any you can get some from the pile next to my house. Just make sure the fire stays going and when I tell you I’m on my way back, just pile it all on and make it big, okay?”

“Yeah! Of course! Yep, I can definitely do that,” Derek says, and Will hears some more muffled thumps and the jingling of keys. 

“Awesome, thank you so much, hopefully I’ll see you soon,” Will says and hangs up.

He holds the steering wheel steady and tries to find a good medium speed between “as fast as possible” and “slow enough the suspension doesn’t rattle to pieces.” It’s a hard balance to strike. He wants to jam his foot down, shoot into the night like a stone from a slingshot, find Chris, find Chris, find Chris. Every rattle of the engine, every jolt of the suspension, every clank from the bed, every squeak of the belts. Find Chris, find Chris, find Chris, find Chris. Even when he’s been driving for what seems like hours and the initial burst of adrenaline has started to flag and he’s tired and he’s tired and the night stretches on into forever. Find Chris, find Chris, find Chris, find Chris. 

Eventually, he’s close enough to the mountain that he figures he can call Chris again.

“I think I can see your headlights!!!” is the first thing Chris says. “Flash your headlights so I can see!”

Will flashes his headlights and gets a screech of triumph in his ear.

“Where are you? Which way do I need to go to get to you?” he asks.

“Just keep going straight! I’ll start heading towards you!!” Chris says. “Stay on the phone?”

“Yeah, I can stay on the phone.” Find Chris, find Chris, find Chris, find Chris — his very being is thrumming with it again. He’s so close. 

In almost no time at all he sees a white lab coat flashing in front of him and Chris is yelling “STOP!!” in his ear. He slams on the brakes. “Get in! Get in! I don’t know how long it will last!” and Chris is climbing into the passenger side and slamming the door and clicking the seat belt. Will makes a Y turn and starts driving back the way he came, following his tracks in the sand as best he can.

“Can you call Derek and tell him to get the fire blazing?” he says to Chris. “I can explain in a second, I just want him to get going on it now.”

Chris puts his phone on speaker and the ringing sounds like the rattle of a thousand earthquakes in the quiet of the car. 

“Chris??” Derek says, from very far away. 

“Dex says to get the fire going,” Chris says dutifully.

“He found you???!!!” Derek shrieks.

Will lets the sound of their conversation wash over and through him as he tries to keep his focus on the tracks in the sand. He can’t get distracted now. Not when they’re so close. He can’t let up until they’re back, can’t let up until he’s gotten Chris back safe to Derek. Chris’s presence next to him is like a beacon in the dark, like every sunrise of every camping trip. Derek was going to be so happy to have Chris back. 

Finally, in the distance, he sees the flickering of a fire. It quickly turns into a blaze, and then a column. “Damn, how big did you build that fire, babe?” Chris says into the phone.

“I wanted to make sure you guys got back safe,” Derek says.

Will pulls up next to a roaring column of flame. The sky is turning grey with the first touches of dawn. As soon as he cuts the engine, Chris is out of his seatbelt, out of the car, and into Derek’s arms. 

All the adrenaline goes out of Will, and he sags against the steering wheel. He can feel the exhaustion just pouring over him. He did it. He brought Chris back. Chris can go back to Derek now, and they can be happy together, and Will . . . well, he promised Chris he wouldn’t disappear. But maybe he can step back now, now that they have each other again. He can fade back into the woodwork. Back into the desert. Fade back into scouts and into work. Maybe he can just . . . stop listening to the radio for a while. Or something. 

He jumps in surprise as the door crashes open with a grating metal squeal. 

“Dex! My hero! My knight in shining armor! What are you still doing in the truck!”

“Get out here and celebrate, man,” Derek says as they pull Will out of the seat. He’s engulfed in a dual bear hug, crushed with the weight of his friends’ joy.


	13. Joy

They have to pull away eventually. Eventually, arms collapse. Eventually, hands slip from around shoulders, and air and space once again began to work their way between them all. Will yawns, a giant cracking thing that splits his face and fills him with more air and more space. The others step away. 

The fire crackles noisily beside them, putting off immense amounts of heat. 

“I guess we’d better put that out,” Dex says eventually. “I’ll get the shovel from my truck.” He trudges over to his truck and gets out the long-handled shovel from the back, trudges back. He starts throwing shovels of sand onto the fire. At first it seems futile; Derek must have thrown his entire wood pile on there. But eventually, with enough sand, the heat from the fire starts to die down. The night wind off the desert sends a shiver of cold air down Dex’s sweat-damp shirt, and the air smells less like smoke and more like dawn. The sky is streaked with grey and the first hints of yellow. Will throws a shovelful of sand onto the last glowing embers, sticks the shovel in the sand, and sags onto the handle. If he was tired before, he’s exhausted now. A whole shift on his feet and the adrenaline of the frantic midnight drive and the effort of quenching a bonfire have taken the last of his reserves, and without the shovel he thinks he might collapse on the spot. He closes his eyes for a second and just lets himself lean. 

“Will?” a voice says close to his ear. He jumps, and the shovel clatters to the ground. He opens his eyes and Derek is bending over to pick it up, is standing up and handing it back to him. Derek is staring at him with an intensity that terrifies him, an intensity he will not identify or linger on. 

“Yes?” he says. His voice is hoarse with sand and soot. He clears his throat. “Yeah?” he says again.

“We should get you home. You must be exhausted.”

“Yeah,” he says, a statement. “Yeah . . .” he winces suddenly. “Ugh, I’ve got to get Roger to school still. What time even is it?” he says, looking at his watch. Almost 6am. Not really enough time to sleep beforehand. He closes his eyes in defeat and feels a little like crying. He takes in a big, heaving breath and sighs. “Guess I’d better get going.”

“Dex—” Chris says, coming up next to him and grabbing his arm. “Are you even good to drive right now?”

Probably not. “I’ll make it,” he says. “I’m not that far from home. There isn’t anyone on the road yet, except for you guys, and you’re going the other way. I’ll be fine.” He must not have been convincing enough, because Derek and Chris look at each other.

“I’ll drive you back,” Derek says. “Chris can follow us in my car.”

“You sure you can drive my truck?” Will asks.

“Pssshhh,” Derek says. “As if I didn’t learn how to drive by driving it out in the vacant lot behind the Ralphs when we were 14.”

“You remember that??” Will asks, too tired to be more than vaguely confused.

“Well, I do now,” Derek says. “Come on, let’s get you in the truck.”

Will slides into the passenger side of his truck, feeling completely disoriented. Once Derek manages to get it off the sand and onto the paved road again, it feels so smooth he could almost fall asleep. He’s drifting half in and half out of consciousness as the sunrise breaks warm across his face. He tries not to pay attention to who it is that’s sitting next to him. 

A short — oh so short — time later, they crunch into the gravel of his driveway, and he can hear Derek get out of the driver’s side. He should probably get out too, but he is so tired. He hears his door open.

“Come on, Will, let’s get you to bed,” Derek says, and stretches out his hand to help Will down. 

Will’s blush comes roaring up at the innuendo, but honestly he is really too tired to care. He tries to struggle out of Derek’s grip and walk on his own, but it’s not happening. Distantly, he can hear another car pulling into the driveway. Must be Chris. As they stumble up to the house, the door opens, and a small streak of white-blonde hair comes barreling into him. 

“Hey bud,” he says, once he gets his breath back.

[friend (of) dad safe?] Roger signs.

Will’s face scrunches in confusion. “How do you know about that?” he asks.

Roger looks pointedly at Derek.

Will cocks his head to look at Derek too.

“Oh! Yeah. I, uh, ran into him and . . . one or two of the Erikas while I was trying to get wood off the wood pile,” Derek says sheepishly. “I told him that one of your friends was in trouble and you were rescuing him and you needed some wood for a fire to make sure that you both got back home safely.”

“Well, we’re safe, bud,” Will says. Distantly, a door slams, and he can hear Chris running up to him. “See?” he says, pointing to Chris.

“Oh hey!!!” Chris says. “You must be Roger, right?”

Roger nods solemnly.

“Your dad was super brave and rescued me,” Chris says. “I used to live in Night Vale, but I got stuck in the desert for a long time, and your dad finally found me and was able to get me back.”

Roger made a face that said he was considering the explanation and that there was clearly more story somewhere. “I’ll tell you more about it later,” Chris says. “Right now your dad is really, really tired because he didn’t get to sleep at all, so he needs to go to bed.”

Roger nods and turns back towards the house, as if showing them where to go. Will smiles.

Roger leads them straight to Will’s bedroom, and Derek practically lifts him up and dumps him on the bed. Chris pulls off his shoes and socks, while Derek pulls the sheets back and rolls him under them.

“Roger still needs to get to school,” Will mumbles into his pillow.

“Between me and Derek and Old Woman Josie and the Erikas, I’m sure we can figure out how to get Roger to school,” Chris says. “You just sleep. You deserve it.”

And with that, Will lets go of his last tenuous grip on consciousness.

* * *

Will wakes up because he is burning up. He’s almost as hot as if he was trying to sleep in a tent in full sun in the desert. He tries to wriggle out of bed so he can pee and get a drink, but he’s . . . trapped? There’s definitely somebody laying on him. Two somebodies, as a matter of fact. He tries to shimmy around from his stomach to his back, but as he turns his head, he realizes Derek’s face is less than an inch from his own. He turns his head to the other side and his face is buried in a shirt and chest that smells like Chris. 

He is not awake enough to deal with this. He groans and shoves his face into his pillow. Next to him, Derek rustles in his sleep and smacks his lips, letting out a warm huff of a sight that tickles Will’s ear. Why are they here? Why didn’t they go home and sleep in their own bed? He’s trapped between the comfortable pressure of their weight and the fact that he is, actually, suffocatingly warm. Plus, now that he’s awake, there’s nothing to do, nothing to keep his mind from racing over everything that’s happened in the last couple of days, and the mystery of why his two best friends, who should by all rights be in their own house fucking each others’ brains out, are sleeping in his bed on either side of him instead.

He starts doing some sort of army crawl maneuver to try and wriggle himself out from under the covers and from under Derek’s arm and somehow not wake either of them up but it’s very difficult. They’re wrapped around him very tightly. Eventually, he manages to get himself flipped over onto his back, but that’s as far as he gets before Chris lifts his head slowly and looks at him with a confused and sleepy glare. 

“Where’re you going?” Chris asks.

“Bathroom?” Will says hesitantly.

Chris sighs as if extremely put out. “Fine. But come right back.”

“Okay . . .” Will says placatingly, and steals into the bathroom. He does his business, gets a drink of water from the sink and tries to splash some water on his face, but even though it makes him feel physically more alert, it doesn’t really dispel his confusion or make him feel any less like he’s missed something, or maybe woken up in a totally different reality again. Still, he goes back to his bed. Where else would he go? (Well. He could go make breakfast. Go watch TV in the living room. Go do something, anything else.) And when he gets back to the doorway of his room, Chris and Derek are still in his bed, still with the space between them where he was. Chris rolls over and sees him in the doorway and smiles, a big sleepy grin that’s like Christmas and a desert sunrise all at once, and Will’s not sure his heart can take it.

“Get over here,” Chris says, nodding to the bed, and Will relents and slides himself back under Derek’s arm. Derek makes a happy little humming noise and snuggles in closer, like Will is some sort of teddy bear or something.

Will is basking in the comfort of his friends; now that he’s no longer under the covers, the heat is less overwhelming. He stares at the ceiling.

“So did Roger get to school okay?” he asks eventually.

“Yeah, I dropped him off,” Chris says quietly, probably so they won’t disturb Derek. “He seems like a really great kid.”

“Yeah, he really is,” Will says. 

“So how’re you doing?” Chris says after a while. They’re both still speaking softly and slowly, careful of their words and of their breaths.

“M fine,” Will says automatically. “Feeling much better.” He feels like Chris is waiting for something else, but he’s comfortable, and he doesn’t really want to talk about it, so he lets the silence hang instead.

“Are you?” Chris asks, and Will knows it’s not about the sleep.

“I’m . . . confused,” he settles for at last.

“But you still like us?” Chris asks, with just enough of a lilt on the “like” that Will knows what he’s really getting at.

Will closes his eyes as his heart twinges. He swallows. “I can get over it,” he says.

“What if . . .” Chris says, brushing a hand across the short stubble buzz of Dex’s hair, “. . . we didn’t want you to?”

“What???” Will’s eyes fly open, and his voice comes out in a strangled croak. He’s still trying not to wake Derek, after all.

Chris sits up on one arm and looks Will directly in the eyes. “Dex. You like both of us. Both of us like you. If we all want there to be more, why not have there be more?”

Will’s heart seizes in his chest and he really can’t believe what he’s hearing. Chris brings his free hand up to Will’s cheek and rubs his thumb over his cheekbone. Will’s heart is pounding so hard he can barely hear anything else.

“Go on, kiss’m, C,” Derek mumbles into Will’s shoulder.

Chris smiles, leans down, and presses a soft, chaste kiss to Will’s lips, pulls back, and continues to stare down at Will with the fondest expression Will has ever seen.

“Was that okay?” Chris asks, his voice a little louder now since Derek is presumably awake.

Will swallows and nods, unable to do anything else.

“Good,” Derek says, wriggling his way up out of the bed like some sort of kraken, “because now it’s my turn.” He kisses Will too, fiercer and more firmly than Chris had. “Should’ve done that years ago,” he says, grinning.

“You did,” Will mumbles.

“What?” Derek says. 

“The day before we looked at our destinies on the tablets under City Hall,” Will says. “You kissed me and told me that no matter what, we’d always be together.”

Derek looks stricken, and then he collapses onto Will’s chest and wraps his arms around him in a hug. “Well, let me say it again, because I mean it again,” he says. “Get in here, C,” he says to Chris, pulling him down on top of them so they’re all collapsed in a big pile.

The warm, tender moment is interrupted by Chris’s stomach rumbling loudly. He bursts into cackles. “I guess now that I’m back from the desert otherworld I’ve started needing food again,” he says.

“Well—” Will grunts, trying to extract himself from the bottom of the pile, “—if you’d let me up, I’ll make you some breakfast.” By the end of the sentence he’s managed to mostly wiggle himself free. 

Derek groans. “Uggghh. Fine. I could eat, I guess,” he says.

“Oh hell yeah!” Chris says, punching the air. “I haven’t gotten to try your cooking at all yet! I can't wait!! I’ve been listening to Derek describe how delicious everything you make is and I’m just dying to try it.”

“I’m sure Derek makes it sound better than it is,” Will mutters.

“Nope!” Derek says from the bed, finally pushing himself up and turning over. “As Voice of Night Vale, I may have a way with words, but bro, that shit is mad delicious. So delicious I don’t think I could ever do it justice.”

Will can feel a blush roaring all the way up his neck and into his hairline. Chris, who has managed to slide off the bed and is standing to the side, is still cackling. He puts his arm around Will’s neck and pulls him off the bed into a bear hug, pressing a kiss to his temple. “Lookit how adorable you are. How could we not like you?” he says.

Will feels like he’s going to combust. “Get off me,” he mumbles, shoving at Chris gently and trying to head towards the bedroom door..

“I see you grinning, you can’t fool me!” Chris calls after him.

* * *

> _And, listeners, on a more personal note, you all have been so great to me while Chris has been stuck in the desert otherworld, so I just wanted to share some wonderful news with you: Chris is back!!! Last night, my childhood best friend, Will Poindexter, noticed a blinking light and a mountain, features Chris has often described in his calls from the desert otherworld. After checking that they were actually the same mountain and same light, Will performed a daring rescue, totally living up to the Scout ideals of being both helpful and prepared. Both Chris and Will are now back from the Desert Otherworld, safe in Night Vale once more._
> 
> _Listeners, the desert is dark and cool, and full of mysterious things, like mountains, and blinking lights. Sometimes love is like keeping a bonfire alive, staring into the darkness of the desert waiting for your boyfriend and your best friend to make their way back to you, hoping against hope that they won’t be swallowed by the deeper darkness of the ominous mountains. Sometimes love is realizing that you have room in your heart for even more than you thought._
> 
> _May you, too, find love in this dark desert. May it be as permanent as the blinking lights, and as comforting as the dull roar of space._
> 
> _Goodnight, Night Vale, goodnight._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading, everyone! Hope you enjoyed this weird little AU mashup as much as I did! It didn't quite turn out the way I was hoping, but hopefully it still hangs together. I now have *so many* snippets, tidbits, and ideas floating around from other PoVs, you guys don’t even know.. 
> 
> I have a whole theory that Roger just wanted to live life as a Real Boy instead of one of the mute children who drags people away for scout ceremonies, and somehow he latched onto Dex as a father figure, and that Roger was the one that got them both out of whatever strange dimension Dex got dragged to and back to Night Vale. The fact that Dex doesn’t remember anything about the weird dimension with mute children is just a side effect of dimensional travel.
> 
> So when Dex asks Nursey to go get some wood for the fire from his house, Nursey is trying to sneak around the woodpile all quietly, but the woodpile is right under Roger’s bedroom window, so he hears something going on and pops his head out the window and scares the living daylights out of Derek. One of the Erikas is also there since whenever they’re over they like to guard Roger while he sleeps, so an Erika pops out too. Derek is friends with the Erikas after all of the Strexcorp stuff but he is really not prepared to handle one popping out unexpectedly in the middle of the night while he’s sneaking around someone else’s house.
> 
> I have a whole entire scout troop of OCs that I was really excited about. I'm sad I ended up having to cut most of the other scout troop scenes that I wrote bc I just didn't have time to finish them all the way I wanted. I was totally going to show Will getting back into being a scout leader again, and talking to all the boys about how great they were when they fought off StrexCorp with Tamika, and all kinds of stuff. 
> 
> I also might write a smutty alternate ending . . . I realized as I was writing the ending that one of my artists is a minor so I couldn't bump the rating any higher than it currently is (and I think it's kind of sweet the way it turned out), but also there definitely could've been some banging. Just sayin'. 
> 
> Anyways, let me know what you think! Concrit is welcome as long as you're nice about it.


End file.
